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Numerous US-British airstrikes target Yemeni capital Sanaa

Al Mayadeen | December 31, 2024

A US-British aggression targeted Tuesday the capital, Sanaa, amid continuous airstrikes, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in Yemen reported.

Our correspondent indicated that the US-British airstrikes targeted the September 21st Park, located in the northwestern part of Sanaa, which previously housed the First Armored Division.

He also noted that the aggression targeted, with eight airstrikes, a complex that includes the Ministry of Defense and military administrative offices in the Bab al-Yemen area in central Sanaa, as well as the May 22nd Military Industrial Complex in the al-Nahda neighborhood, northwest of Sanaa.

The spokesman for the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, Mohammad Abdelsalam, pointed out that the aggression against Yemen represents “a blatant violation of the sovereignty of an independent state” and comes in support of “Israel”.

Abdelsalam affirmed that “Yemen will continue to defend itself against any aggression and remains steadfast in supporting Gaza.”

The latest aggression comes a couple of hours after the spokesperson of the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF), Brigadier General Yahya Saree, announced that the YAF missile force carried out two top-tier military operations against Israeli targets.

The first targeted Ben Gurion Airport in the city of Yafa (Tel Aviv) in occupied Palestine using a hypersonic ballistic missile of the Palestine-2 type, Saree said, adding that the second operation targeted a power station in southern occupied al-Quds with a Zulfiqar-type ballistic missile.

According to the spokesperson, both missiles successfully hit their targets.

Saree pointed out that the two operations coincided with a joint operation conducted by the YAF’s naval, missile, and UAV forces, targeting the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman with a large number of drones and cruise missiles, while US forces were preparing to launch a major aerial attack against Yemen.

He confirmed that the operation successfully achieved its objectives, thwarting the planned American aerial assault on Yemen.

Elsewhere, Saree reiterated that the operations of the YAF will only cease with the cessation of the Israeli aggression against Gaza and the lifting of the blockade imposed on the Palestinian strip.

December 31, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel and the United States: Who Rules the Roost?

By Dr. M. Reza Behnam | Palestine Chronicle | December 8, 2024 

We had several other people in the country (USA), even among the Jews,the Zionists particularly, who were against anything that has to be done if they couldn’t have the whole of Palestine and everything handed to them on a silver plate so they wouldn’t have to do anything. It couldn’t be done. We had to take it in small doses. You can’t move 5 or 6 million people out of a country and fill it up with 5 or 6 million more and expect both sets of them to be pleased….don’t think that the decision to recognize Israel was an easy one. I had to make a compromise with the Arabs and divide Palestine.”

President Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953

The Palestinian catastrophe in the United States began with the 33rd president and has continued with the 47th.

And then there was one, or two—one country, two systems. The political, economic, military and intelligence “interests” of the United States and Israel have become intertwined and often indistinguishable since President Truman decided to officially recognize Israel in 1948.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated, “I am a Zionist.” With that avowal, he placed the government and the American people firmly in the Israeli camp, linking the United States to apartheid, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Fifty-seven years ago, the United States chose to inextricably link its interests with an apartheid entity. And since then, for Biden and many in Washington, Israel has become a religion. Very few American politicians, especially since the 1990s, have had the mettle to challenge Israel’s dominance over US policy in the Middle East.

Israel’s leaders are well-practiced in manipulation. They have a long history of insolence toward their number one patron. Americans and US policy in the Middle East have been seen as naive and easily exploited, said Uri Dromi, who served as spokesman for the regimes of Yitzhak Rabin (1974-77; 1992-95) and Shimon Peres (1984-86).

American presidents engage in public rebukes and short-term responses to Israel’s brutal actions, but rarely, if ever are there consequences. The following encounters are just a limited edition of instances when US politicians have buckled under Israeli pressure.

The interactions, for example, between President Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and Prime Minister Menachem Begin (former Irgun terrorist) were fraught. On June 7, 1981, Israel used US warplanes to destroy Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor without informing President Reagan.

Instead Begin called Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, to inform him of the impending attack. Begin and his Likud Party had been cultivating ties to evangelical leaders like Falwell to build the alliance between US evangelical Christians and Israel. Today there are more than 30 million Christian Zionists in the United States.

As a US “ally,” Reagan expected Israel to consult when planning measures that would impact US strategic interests in the region. The administration temporarily suspended the delivery of additional F-16 jets and supported a UN Security Council resolution denouncing the attack on an International Atomic Energy Agency-approved nuclear reactor. Despite Begin’s rejection of US proposals and refusal to apologize, the White House lifted the suspension of the F-16s deliveries in August 1981.

Reagan faced another affront a few months later in December 1981, when again, without informing the president, Begin illegally annexed the captured Syrian Golan Heights. The slight came shortly after the two countries had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on strategic cooperation, written specifically so that Israel would no longer surprise the United States.

In response to the annexation, the United States suspended the MoU and imposed limited economic sanctions on Israel. Begin then accused the United States of anti-Semitism and “pointed out” that the United States had a strong Jewish community and millions of Christians supportive of Israel. The underlying message of electoral consequences was not lost on Reagan. Like measures taken after the Osirak attack, the penalties imposed on Israel were merely temporary window dressings.

George H.W. Bush, who succeeded Reagan in 1989, experienced his measure of clashes with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (former Zionist leader of the right-wing Stern Gang) and Benjamin Netanyahu, who was deputy foreign minister at the time.

The Bush administration was the last to “seriously” negotiate peace. Pro-Israel lobbies, both Jewish and Christian, in the United States did their best to sabotage the 1991 comprehensive peace conference in Madrid.

Bush’s secretary of state, James A. Baker, came under fire for negotiating directly and officially with Palestinians. He was also criticized for leveraging US aid to stop Israel’s expanding colonization of the occupied West Bank and for calling on Israel to lay aside its expansionist policies and unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel.

Frustrated by Israeli intransigence, Baker reportedly referred to Tel Aviv’s stalwart supporters in the US Congress as “the little Knesset.”

The Madrid Conference failed to produce results. Although Palestinians were essentially asked to negotiate with their Israeli occupiers, little was asked of Israel. To get Shamir to attend, the United States accepted Israel’s conditions that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) be excluded, that the Palestinian delegation be subject to Israeli approval, and that Palestinian independence and statehood not be addressed.

The famous confrontation in 1991 over US loan guarantees to Israel was yet another example of its insouciance about bypassing the executive to achieve its aims.

Shortly after America’s war against Iraq in 1991, Israel sought an additional $10 billion in loan guarantees from Washington to help populate Palestinian land with Jewish emigres from the former Soviet Union. The White House wanted assurances that the money would not go toward the building of additional “settlements,” and threatened to withhold funds until it received guarantees.

Recalling the event years later, Baker explained that the clash between the two governments resulted because Prime Minister Shamir had threatened that if the administration did not provide the funds, he would bypass the executive and take his case directly to Congress. Baker said he responded, “you’re damn well not going to do that. You can’t go around the President of the United States.”

The Jewish right to this day views Baker as toxic. The Jewish Press, a religiously conservative pro-Israel newspaper, described him as one of the most “reviled” public figures in Israel and among American Jews.

Although the administration eventually yielded on the loan issue, President Bush remained convinced he lost re-election in 1992 because of the pro-Israel lobby campaign against him.

The willingness to enter into political struggles with Israel’s leaders and their Washington supporters and to seriously ask something of Israel essentially came to an end with the election of President Bill Clinton (1993-2001).

The Madrid Conference paved the way for the Oslo Accords (1993 and 1995) negotiated during the Clinton presidency. For the Palestinians, it was a sham. For Israel, it consolidated domination over Palestinians and their land.

Israel can be more thoroughly understood by observing the conduct of incumbent prime minister and international fugitive, Benjamin Netanyahu. It has been his mission since the early 1990s to expand illegal colonies in occupied Palestine, prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and crush Palestinian resistance.

Netanyahu thinks of the United States as gullible. A former Israeli minister who worked with him remarked that in cabinet discussions whenever someone raises the question of how America would act, Netanyahu says “Leave the Americans to me.”

To show America who’s the boss, Netanyahu has embarrassed presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

One of Netanyahu’s first acts as prime minister in 1996 was to sabotage the Oslo Accords, antagonizing President Clinton who had helped negotiate the agreement. After his first meeting with Netanyahu, Clinton let loose, saying “Who the f**k does he think he is? Who’s the f***ing superpower here?”

By the time Netanyahu’s first term ended in 1999, the Oslo agreements had collapsed and Zionist colonies were firmly entrenched.

Netanyahu’s contemptuous approach toward the United States was in full view in a secretly recorded video of a conversation he had with colonists in their house in the occupied West Bank in 2001. In it, he bragged that he had deceived Clinton into believing that he was implementing the agreement, that he knew how to manipulate Americans, and that he had essentially put an end to the Oslo Accords.

The video was taped during the second intifada (Palestinian uprising) when the Israeli military was crushing the resistance. Netanyahu talked about hitting Palestinians “hard” many times so that “the price will be unbearable.”

A skeptical colonist asked him if he worried about what the United States and the world would think and say of Israel “hitting Palestinians hard.” Netanyahu responded:

“The world will say nothing… that we are defending ourselves…  I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved… moved in the right direction. The Americans will not bother us. Let’s suppose that they will say something… So they say it. Eighty percent of Americans support us. It’s absurd. We have such support there!”

Netanyahu’s belligerence intensified during the presidency of Barack Obama. His flippancy toward Obama was unabashed during a tense public meeting in the Oval Office in May 2011.

The meeting took place a day after Obama had attempted to revive the stalled peace process, where he stated that the borders between Israel and Palestine should be based on 1967 lines, with some adjustments for existing Zionist colonies.

Netanyahu bluntly responded, “It’s not going to happen,” Israel would never return to 1967 borders, warning Obama not to chase “illusions” of peace. He then brazenly lectured the president on the history of the region. After the meeting, Obama’s national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said: “I have never seen a foreign leader speak to the president like that, and certainly not in public… ”

Netanyahu used the Oval Office exchange during his 2019 campaign by releasing a campaign video in which he boasted of how he stood up to Obama and stared him down.

An additional insult came on 3 March 2015. On that date, Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress (for the third time), excoriating the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy initiative—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Iran nuclear deal. He had come to Washington at the invitation of then-Republican House Speaker John Boehner. The White House was not informed of the arrangements.

Although the relationship between the two leaders was fraught, Obama was one of the most pro-Israel presidents, giving it more money and arms than any of his predecessors. Before leaving office, Obama approved one of the largest military aid packages yet: $38 billion for the next ten years.

Netanyahu repaid President Obama’s favors with a number of slights. During his campaign for re-election in 2012, for example, he endorsed the president’s opponent, Republican Mitt Romney. In addition, Netanyahu also embarked on a very public and intense campaign to sabotage the Iran nuclear agreement. That was finally accomplished in May 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA.

With the election of Biden in 2021, the pro-Zionist/pro-Israel sentiment of the US regime has become more pronounced.

In service to Israel, the Biden administration has spent more than $22 billion on military aid and made more than 100 military aid transfers and weapons sales to Israel from October 7, 2023, to September 30, 2024. Another $680 million arms sales deal was recently approved. And for the fourth time (November 20, 2024), the administration vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Our history reveals that some American politicians in the past exhibited the ethical and moral courage necessary to speak and write on the pitfalls of following Israel uncritically. There have not been many. Among the few, Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright stands out. In his 1989 book, The Price of Empire, he wrote:

“The (Israel) lobby can just about tell the president what to do when it comes to Israel. Its influence in Congress is pervasive and, I think, profoundly harmful to us and ultimately to Israel itself… So completely have many of our principal officeholders fallen under Israeli influence that they not only deny today the legitimacy of Palestinian national aspirations, but debate who more passionately opposes a Palestinian state…,” adding,

“AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and its allied organizations have effective working control of the electoral process. They can elect or defeat nearly any congressman or senator that they wish, with their money and coordinated organizations. They are the really important power to negotiate within the Middle East if you want an agreement.”

Senator Fulbright served for 30 years, 15 of those as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Another critic of Israeli arrogance was Admiral Thomas Moorer. He was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974. Republican Congressman Paul Findley of Illinois recalled Moorer’s comments on page 161 in his book, They Dare to Speak Out:

“I’ve never seen a president… stand up to them (the Israelis)… They always get what they want. The Israelis know what’s going on all the time… If the American people understood what grip those people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don’t have any idea what goes on.”

The political climate in Washington has gone from bad to worse since Findley served in Congress from 1961 to 1983. His recollections on page 84 of his book are noteworthy:

“Today, on Middle East issues at least, independence and courage are almost unknown… Since the establishment of modern Israel in 1948, only a handful of senators have said or done anything in opposition to the policies of the government of Israel. Those who break ranks find themselves in difficulty.”

George Ball, US Under Secretary of State (1961-1966), also spoke frankly when he discussed Israel and its relationship with US politics and American politicians. In a 1988 CBS “60 Minutes” report on AIPAC influence on US politics, he remarked: “Practically every congressman and senator says his prayers to the AIPAC lobby.”

Amnesty International, in December 2024, released its well-documented 293-page report, “You Feel like You Are Subhuman: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.” In a warning to all, it stated: “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: “This is genocide. It must stop now.”

The State Department’s response to the report: “What I can say as a spokesperson for the US government and as a spokesperson of this administration is that the findings of the accusations of genocide, we continue to believe those to be unfounded.” The non-response bears witness to America’s complicity in genocide and the continuous catastrophe for Palestinians.

Caveat lector: As long as Israel and its lobbies have ownership over America’s Middle East policy, Palestinians will experience more of the same indifference and injustice, the region will be thrown into more chaos, the American public will continue to be red-pilled and international law will become worthless.

Dr. M. Reza Behnam is a political scientist specializing in the history, politics and governments of the Middle East.

December 31, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s collateral killing of civilians is finally in the spotlight

The New York Times’ recent “bombshell” presents facts that have been known for a long time – and does its best to sanitize them

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | December 30, 2024

The New York Times recently published a piece admitting that an unprecedented amount of “collateral damage” was permitted by the Israeli military. However, it omits key statistics that were previously revealed in order to sanitize the revelations it claims to be uncovering.

Presented as a bombshell piece, the December 26 article reveals that Israel had sent through an order that permitted killing up to 20 civilians for each low-level Hamas target. “The order, which has not previously been reported, had no precedent in Israeli military history,” the article reads.

However, in early April of 2024, an Israeli media outlet called +972 Magazine had not only published this fact, citing sources within Israel’s military, but uncovered much more damning figures detailing what was to be considered “acceptable” collateral damage.

The +972 article revealed that the Israeli airstrike that killed Hamas’ Shujaiya Battalion Commander, Wisam Farhat, was authorized to kill 100 civilians. Even more shocking was the infamous case of Ayman Nofal, the commander of Hamas’ Central Gaza Brigade, where, according to the sources, “the army authorized the killing of approximately 300 civilians.”

The +972 report was mentioned in passing by The New York Times, with the caveat that Israel’s military had denied it. However, +972 Mag’s investigative work on this topic did not begin in April. In fact, a piece published in November of 2023 cited a source who claimed the following:

“The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage.”

So, while a big deal is made of the fact that such high numbers of collateral damage have “no precedent in Israeli military history,” the IDF has been knowingly writing off civilians as collateral damage for years. One need only look at literally any UN report on Israel’s past military conduct to see it.

It isn’t only in Gaza that such horrendous “collateral damage” has been normalized, it has also been the case in Lebanon. When Israel carried out the assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, it openly announced that it estimated the total death toll to be around 300, as a result of leveling a number of civilian buildings in southern Beirut.

There is literally nothing in the article published by The New York Times that is new; all it does is affirm what has already been reported, yet it is done in a way that works to water the killings down by omitting key facts and repeating old tropes.

For example, it repeats as proven fact the widespread allegation that Hamas purposely embeds itself amongst civilians to use them as human shields, a point that has been found at least questionable before.

What is undeniable however, is that Israel uses Palestinians as human shields, as has been copiously documented throughout the war and used to be an accepted part of Israel’s military doctrine.

“From November 2023 onward, amid a global outcry, Israel began to conserve ammunition and tighten some of its rules of engagement, including by halving the number of civilians who could be endangered when striking low-ranked militants who posed no imminent threat” states the NYT. The question here is, where did this information come from? According to the article itself, the sources are all Israeli soldiers and officials.

The only evidence presented is the words of the Israelis. Was there any analysis done or examples cited to prove that the IDF would only kill ten civilians on average for every low-ranking Hamas fighter? Absolutely not, because not even Israel can present this information to the public, nor the names of the thousands of supposed “Hamas fighters” it has targeted.

If we go by Israel’s official figures for the number of alleged Hamas militants killed, they rise at such a rate that it doesn’t match the death toll figures accepted by the United Nations. While the official death toll in Gaza is nearly 46,000, with 10,000 missing and presumed dead, the only way Israeli “Hamas fighter” figures make sense is if the toll is much higher. However, accepting a higher death toll in order to give Israel’s claims about Hamas fighters more legitimacy would mean that The New York Times would face another issue: they would then have to wrestle with the fact that the killing only escalated in November of 2023.

In addition to this all, the +972 article from April 3 provides a much more in-depth insight into the artificial intelligence systems used by the Israeli army and points out that the targets it generated were highly inaccurate. The investigation discovered that when the Lavender system chose junior Hamas targets, the Israeli army would actually use its more lethal unguided munitions, because “you don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people.”

Furthermore, +972 noted that while a human has to verify targets chosen by the AI before a strike is ordered, eventually this boiled down to simply making sure the target is male – spending about 20 seconds on average before pulling the trigger.

Nowhere in the New York Times article is there any mention of the slaughter of civilians where no military target is located, there is no mention of the mass torture, sexual abuse, or demolition of homes for the pure vanity of soldiers. Everything is framed as a military that went a little overboard after the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

December 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Female Palestinian journalist shot dead as PA forces raid Jenin refugee camp

Deceased Palestinian journalist Shaza al-Sabbagh
Press TV – December 29, 2024

A female Palestinian journalist has been killed after she was shot in the head during a raid by the Palestinian Authority (PA) forces at the Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank.

The family of Shaza al-Sabbagh said their daughter was on the way to a grocery store when she was directly shot from a PA forces military point located near their house.

A spokesman for the PA’s so-called security forces, Colonel Anwar Rajab, claimed in a statement that the troops were not present in the area at the time of the shooting.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says the death of Shaza al-Sabbagh, who was reportedly studying journalism at al-Quds Open University, has to be investigated.

The group called for an independent committee to be formed “to uncover the truth, hold the killers accountable, and ensure they do not escape punishment.”

Sabbagh is the eleventh person to be killed since PA forces started an offensive in the Jenin refugee camp three weeks ago to root out what it calls “lawless elements.”

Earlier this month, the Hamas resistance movement condemned PA forces for killing a commander of the fellow Islamic Jihad group during a raid in the occupied West Bank, warning that such actions will aggravate the years-long rift among Palestinian factions.

The Gaza-based movement, in a statement released on December 14, expressed its condolences over the shooting death of Yazid Jaya’isa, a leader of the Jenin Brigade, in the Jenin refugee camp.

It said that PA forces’ targeting of resistance figures falls within the framework of the crimes of the occupying Israeli regime.

Hamas called the attack “a disgraceful act” that will deepen internal divisions at a critical moment in the Palestinian struggle.

Hamas also warned that the ongoing pursuit of resistance fighters would only fuel internal conflict at a time when unity is most needed.

December 29, 2024 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

US, British jets rain fire on Yemeni capital in new late night attack

The Cradle | December 28, 2024

US and UK warplanes launched a new round of airstrikes on the Yemeni capital late on 27 December, targeting the 21 September park in the Maeen district of Sanaa, according to Yemen’s Al-Masirah TV.

No photos or videos of the attack have been released or circulated on social media. US Central Command (CENTCOM) has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

The latest western aggression came one day after Israeli warplanes launched massive airstrikes on Sanaa and the coastal province of Hodeidah in retaliation for continued drone and hypersonic missile attacks by the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

Earlier on Friday, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis marched through the streets of Sanaa, Saada, Hodeidah, Hajjah, and Al-Mahwit, proclaiming, “We firmly stand with Gaza, the glory… without limits and without red lines.”

Demonstrators also called on the YAF to intensify their operations in support of Palestine.

The mobilizations started soon after YAF spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree confirmed that Sanaa conducted drone and missile attacks targeting Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, “a vital target” south of Tel Aviv, and an Israeli-linked ship in the Arabia Sea, in response to Israel’s aggressions on Yemen and Gaza.

At least six people were killed and 40 others injured when Israel bombed Sanaa International Airport, Red Sea ports, and power stations on Thursday.

“[Ansarallah] are more technologically advanced than perceived by many [and should not be] underrated,” an Israeli official told the Washington Post on Friday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

He claimed that with support from Iran, Yemen has been able to take “practical steps” in fighting a war against Israel and its close allies.

“Because it’s so cheap for them to try to get a drone or a missile every few days or weeks into Israel, they can win this,” Yoel Guzansky, a former official on Israel’s National Security Council and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv told the US daily.

The US and UK launched an illegal war on Yemen at the start of the year, seeking to protect Israeli trade interests and shield the country from the pro-Gaza operations of the Axis of Resistance.

Yemeni operations have been ongoing since November 2023, and Sanaa has vowed not to stop until the genocide in Gaza comes to an end. The daring operations by the YAF against Israel and its allies have forced several US aircraft carriers and European warships out of West Asia.

December 28, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

IOF storm Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, set fire to premises

Israel detonated explosive-laden robots, destroyed hospital facilities

Al Mayadeen | December 27, 2024

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) conducted Friday a harrowing assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, setting five of its sections on fire after raiding it, abducting patients and medical staff, and forcing them to strip.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the fire had begun spreading to all buildings of the hospital, adding that the occupation forces burned the operations and surgery sections, as well as the laboratory, maintenance, and emergency units.

In an alarming escalation, the IOF launched an airstrike in the vicinity of the hospital, after storming its premises and forcibly displacing 300 patients. Many of these patients, who were dependent on life-saving medical devices, were left in the open, exposed to the harsh cold, further endangering their fragile health.

IOF also thoroughly searched the patients and medical staff, adding to the trauma.

After forcibly displacing the patients and hospital staff, the IOF abducted the patients, along with residents from surrounding areas, and gathered them in the yard of al-Fakhoura School amid harsh weather conditions.

The move has been condemned as a grave violation of international humanitarian law, highlighting the Israeli military’s disregard for the sanctity of medical facilities and the welfare of the vulnerable in Gaza.

Inevitable fate of northern Gaza people will be death

Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in Gaza noted that with the targeting of Kamal Adwan Hospital, all hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip have gone out of service.

On his part, the director of hospitals in the Gaza Strip underlined that “the free world must intervene immediately to stop the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip,” pointing out that medical staff are being subjected to abuse by Israeli forces in various hospitals across the strip that they are storming.

The suspension of services at Kamal Adwan Hospital deprives the people of northern Gaza of medical care, the director said, warning that under the current situation, the inevitable fate of the people in the area will be death.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, received a clear threat from the occupation that he will be arrested this time.

Hamas condemns the attack as a war crime

In response to the latest Israeli assault, Hamas condemned the actions as a “war crime” added to a growing list of atrocities committed by “Israel” against the Palestinian people. The group slammed the international community for its continued inaction on protecting civilians and medical facilities.

It further accused the US of complicity in the ongoing aggression, calling the Israeli military’s actions “Zionist war crimes” committed amid global silence.

The movement held the Israeli occupation and the US administration fully responsible for the lives of patients, the injured, and the medical staff working in the hospital. This follows their complete isolation from means of communication and reports of abuse, the arrest of several individuals, and their transfer to an unknown location.

Hamas urged the international community, including the United Nations, to break its silence and take immediate action to halt the Israeli ongoing genocide in Gaza. The group called for measures to ensure accountability for the Israeli entity’s atrocities, demanding that Israeli officials face justice for their crimes against humanity.

IOF target al-Awda Hospital with direct gunfire

In yet another attack on hospitals in Gaza, IOF fired on the al-Awda Hospital and its surrounding areas in northern Gaza earlier today. The bombardment followed the detonation of a remote-controlled explosive device near the facility in the early morning hours.

Concurrently, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has confirmed the death of Dr. Ahmed al-Zaharneh, a physician at the European Gaza Hospital, who passed away due to the extremely cold conditions in Gaza, with his body discovered in his tent in the Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Over 10 Palestinians killed in ongoing Israeli airstrikes

Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported that more than 10 Palestinians have been killed, with at least 30 others injured, most of them women and children, in a series of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since the early hours of Friday morning, amid intensified attacks on the northern part of the Strip.

Among the targeted areas was the Halawah land in Jabalia al-Balad, northern Gaza, where several Palestinians were injured. Additionally, Israeli forces targeted a home in the al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, killing five Palestinians and injuring three others.

In the al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, another home was hit. However, Civil Defense teams were unable to reach the site to rescue the injured, as the occupation had previously and categorically refused any coordination with the Red Cross.

The scale of destruction and loss of life continues to escalate as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens, with medical and civilian facilities increasingly under attack.

December 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

In America It’s Another Week to be Proud of!

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • December 26, 2024

Something good happened in Washington last week, suggesting that the year might actually end on a high note without Joe Biden starting World War 3 and opening up all the country’s prisons for the on-the-street rehabilitation of the inmates where they will undoubtedly learn new skills. The good thing was the signing by Biden of a bill, perhaps with a little bit of help from his friends to make sure he spelled his name correctly, to make the Bald Eagle the official bird of the United States of America. The Eagle has been around the American Republic virtually since its foundation, appearing on the Great Seal and on various documents and even on currency, but it has never been officially dubbed the national bird.

All honor of place is due to the great bald eagle, but one might recall that Benjamin Franklin once suggested that the best choice for the national bird would be the wild turkey. And Biden still has time for mischief, including possibly ennobling turkeys or even the issuance of a pardon to himself for ignoring the United States Constitution for four years. And Joe might well choose to go preemptive by pardoning Hillary Clinton for all those classified emails and other documents that somehow disappeared from her home and office ten years ago. But apart from that, it is somehow reassuring to be able to keep repeating “only three more weeks of Biden and Harris” even though the potential for more damage to the Bill of Rights remains enormous.

Joe is well remembered for his open borders invitation which has produced huge crowds of happy American voters who were clearly not delighted to share the burden of millions of uneducated and unskilled foreigners who have demonstrated their ability to burn to death women sleeping on subway trains in New York City just to see what a flaming human body looks like. Oh, and the new Americans have to be housed and fed by the existing population as the process grinds on, but that is what the Democrats running nearly all the major US cities have come to expect from a cowed population that now understands that opposing government policies puts one on the FBI enemies list.

Joe and his stalwart band of liars have also connived in pulling together two wars in which the United States had no actual interest, arming and funding both Ukraine and Israel. Israel has said thank you by adroitly engaging in genocide against the Palestinian people while Kiev is somewhat clumsily occupied in trying to draw the US and NATO into open warfare against Russia, which would become a nuclear World War 3, so there is still time Joe! And then there is the new war going on in Syria where the US armed and trained militias are fighting similarly armed and trained militias controlled by the Turks, who are poised to divide what once was a place called Syria with the Israelis. The Zionists have for many years been planning to exterminate Lebanese and Syrians as well as Palestinians to create a Greater Israel.

But Joe and his buddies apparently are not satisfied with having started two wars when there are so many other places that need a stern dose of the old “rules based international order” to get their houses in order. China is number one on the list as it is outperforming the United States and the Europeans economically. And one can always use the excuse that it is threatening good old Taiwan to crank up a shooting war. And then there is Iran, everyone’s favorite when it comes to “who is next on the list?” Israel has eliminated Hezbollah and Syria, with US connivance and approval, to open the door to destroying the Iranian non-existent nuclear weapons program. Both Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been openly discussing that option as it would mean bombing Iran’s military bases as well as its technical research facilities. Donald Trump has been involved in similar discussions with Netanyahu.

How the attacks on Iran might play out is interesting to contemplate and might follow something like the model of what happed to Syria. Recent reports indicate that something unexpected took place during an Israeli bombing attack directed against a Syrian strategic military site located near the city of Tartus. Israel has been bombing Syria constantly since the government of Bashar al-Assad fell and it has particularly targeted any sites or weapons warehouses that the new government can use to defend itself or establish its territorial integrity. The bombing in question used what many suspect to be a tactical nuclear weapon in an effort to completely obliviate the Syrian military installation that houses scud surface-to-surface missiles among other high-level ordnance. A huge explosion was noted on seismographs located five hundred miles away, as far as Iznik in Turkey. The blast might have been caused by the detonation of the many weapons stored in the facility, but the suspicion grows that Israel, protected as always by Washington even when it commits mass murder or defies international conventions on banned weapons, continues to believe that it can do and get away with anything.

Even if Biden does not open any new doors to further deploy the US military, there is considerable danger that he will succeed in locking new President Donald Trump in the conflicts currently going on. Trump is not averse to using force when it is what he considers the best option. He has lately said some ridiculous things, arguing that the United States considers the “ownership and control of Greenland” to be an “absolute necessity” for maintaining American “national security” and “freedom throughout the world.” This has naturally riled the people who actually live in Greenland who now are wondering how they are blocking freedom globally.

The statement on Greenland came after Trump in a conversation at Mar-a-Lago demoted Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada by giving him the title of “Governor”, calling Canada the 51st State of the United States “union,” which would “save on taxes and military protection.” Trump also has threatened to take over the Panama Canal and tweeted “we’ll see about that!” in response to the President of Panama’s declaration that every inch of the Panama Canal belongs to Panama. Trump then posted up a graphic on his website featuring “Welcome to the United States Canal!” above a picture of the American flag flying over a lock in the Panama Canal. Trump has also allegedly privately considered invading Mexico in order to combat the drug cartels on the US border and using American soldiers to block illegal immigrants seeking to cross.

Trump’s ignorance over who is doing what in the Middle East is astonishing but largely derives from his own personal and family attachment to Zionism and more particularly to his reliance on billionaire Jewish donors. The serial appointments of pro-Israel nominees to the key cabinet posts where decisions impacting Israel will be made for the next four years both will shape policy and guarantee that Trump stays on track with Israel, just as Joe Biden did when surrounded by his own Jewish neocons. Trump has already vowed that there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if the remaining Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip are not released by his January 20th inauguration.

Likewise, Israeli government officials, including Netanyahu, cannot wait for current Secretary of State Antony Blinken to be replaced by Florida congressman Marco Rubio. Blinken has been a complete tool of Israel but he projects a certain timidity. Rubio shows no such restraint and is very clear on what he believes to be true. He recently called Hamas “animals” and made clear that they are “100% to blame” for everyone killed in Israel and in Gaza during the current war. The moment he assumes control, there will be the “maximum pressure” that Trump often cites on Hamas to surrender or face the consequences. The Trump administration will supply Israel with bunker-busting bombs and whatever else is needed to kill anyone perceived to be an enemy of the Jewish state. Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said, “If you love America, you should love Israel.” He will back that up by delivering on Israel’s military needs as defined by Netanyahu.

So there you go! The old year is ending on both a bang and a whimper. Joe Biden still has plenty of opportunity to raise hell and tie Trump to certain policies, particularly when it comes to continuing “useless” wars. Trump for his part will enter office owned by Israel and led by the nose by his belligerent cabinet. The actual needs and interests of the American people will be, as usual, invisible to the politicians and lost in the shuffle.

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

December 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran FM: China visit marks ‘new chapter’ in strategic ties, heralds ‘golden’ era

Press TV – December 27, 2024

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says his visit to China will open a “new chapter” in strategic cooperation between the two countries and herald a “golden” era for bilateral relations.

Araghchi made the remarks in an article published by China’s official People’s Daily newspaper on Friday, on the day that he was to head to Beijing at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.

“The next golden 50 years of Iran-China relations will demonstrate that this visit marks the beginning of a new chapter of strategic cooperation between the two countries,” he wrote.

The top Iranian diplomat also noted that Iran and China have long engaged in “practical cooperation” to promote multilateralism and develop indigenous values, adding that both sides have defended each other’s fundamental interests in international forums.

He also hailed “pragmatic” Iran-China ties, citing close political and defense coordination, exchange of high-level delegations, as well as cooperation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS group of emerging economies, and the Beijing-brokered deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March 2023.

“Iran and China share common interests and concerns not only at bilateral and regional levels, but also at the trans-regional and international levels,” he emphasized.

“While firmly believing in the significance of multilateralism and the benefits of joint cooperation towards the prosperity of human society, both countries keep cooperating closely in multilateral mechanisms, including the SCO and the BRICS.”

China is Iran’s largest trade partner. Both states are subject to different levels of illegal sanctions imposed by the US.

The two countries signed the long-term strategic partnership deal in March 2021 to reinforce their long-standing economic and political alliance.

In his article, Araghchi said that West Asia is facing numerous challenges, the core of which is the Palestine issue.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza, caused by the Israeli genocide and supported by some world powers, has been exacerbated by the inaction of the international community and irresponsible behavior of some parties, he noted.

Iran and China believe that an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the delivery of humanitarian aid are now the most important priorities, he said.

The Iranian foreign minister further referred to the recent developments in Syria, urging respect for the country’s unity, national sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

Tehran, he pointed out, believes that the Syrian people should decide the future of their country without destructive intervention or external imposition.

“We are witnessing unprecedented changes in the world that have simultaneously created complex “opportunities” and “challenges” and put countries at a historical crossroad, where they must choose between confrontation/cooperation, exclusion/inclusion, closeness/openness, chaos/peace,” he said.

“Some states are trying to restrict and force others to choose their desired values ​​and interests by distorting the facts, falsely dividing the world into democratic and non-democratic, and resorting to sanctions, pressure and double standards. However, Iran and China will always stand on the right side of history and by the side of development, prosperity, cooperation, and friendship between the countries of the Global South in a bid to counter unilateralism and bullying.”

December 27, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

A Palestinian year in review: Genocide, resistance and unanswered questions

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | December 26, 2024

The story of the Israeli war on Gaza can be epitomized in the story of the Israeli war on Beit Lahia, a small Palestinian town in the northern part of the Strip.

When Israel launched its ground operations in Gaza, Beit Lahia was already largely destroyed due to many days of relentless Israeli bombardment which killed thousands.

Still, the border Gaza town resisted, leading to a hermetic Israeli siege, which was never lifted, even when the Israeli military redeployed out of much of northern Gaza in January 2024.

Beit Lahia is largely an isolated town, a short distance away from the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel. It is surrounded mostly by agricultural areas that make it nearly impossible to defend.

Yet, a year of grisly Israeli war and genocide in Gaza did not end the fighting there. To the contrary, 2024 has ended where it started, with intense fighting on all fronts in Gaza, with Beit Lahia, a town that was supposedly ‘conquered’ earlier, still leading the fight.

Beit Lahia is a microcosm of Israel’s failed war in the Strip, a bloody grind that has led nowhere, despite the massive destruction, the repeated ethnic cleansing of the population, the starvation and the genocide. Every day of Israel’s terrible war on the Palestinians serves as a reminder that there are no military solutions and that the Palestinian will cannot be broken, no matter the cost or the sacrifice.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, remains unconvinced. He entered the new year with more promises of ‘total victory’, and ended it as a wanted criminal by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The issuing of an arrest warrant for the Israeli leader was a reiteration of a similar position taken by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the start of 2024.

The ICJ’s position, however, was hardly as strong as many had hoped or wanted to believe. The world’s highest court had, on 26 January, ordered Israel “to take action to prevent acts of genocide”, but stopped short of ordering Israel to halt its war.

The Israeli objectives of the war remained unclear, although Israeli politicians provided clues as to what the war on Gaza was really all about. Last January, several Israeli ministers, including 12 from Netanyahu’s Likud party, took part in a conference calling for the resettlement of Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. “Without settlements, there is no security,” extremist Israeli minister of finance, Bezalel Smotrich, said.

For that to happen, the Palestinian people themselves, not merely those fighting on the ground, had to be tamed, broken and defeated. Thus, the ‘flour massacres‘, a new Israeli war tactic that was centered around killing as many Palestinians as possible while waiting for the few aid trucks that were allowed to reach northern Gaza.

On 29 February, more than 100 Gazans were killed while queueing for aid. They were mowed down by Israeli soldiers, as they desperately tried to lay their hands on a loaf of bread, baby milk or a bottle of water. This scene was repeated, again and again in the north, but also in other parts of the Gaza Strip throughout the year.

The aim was to starve the Palestinians in the north so that they would be forced to flee to other parts of the Strip. Famine actualized as early as January, and many of those who tried to flee south were killed, anyway.

From the early days of the war, Israel understood that to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, they must target all aspects of life in the Strip. This includes hospitals, bakeries, markets, electric grids, water stations, and the like.

The Gaza hospitals, of course, received a large share of Israeli attacks. In March, once more, Israel attacked the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City with greater ferocity than before. When it finally withdrew, on April 1, the Israeli army destroyed the entire compound, leaving behind mass graves with hundreds of bodies, mostly medical staff, women and children. They even executed several patients.

Aside from a few statements of concern by western leaders, little was done to bring the genocide to an end. Only when seven international aid workers with the charity, the World Central Kitchen, were killed by Israel, a global outcry followed, leading to the first and only Israeli apology in the entire war.

Desperate to distract from its failure in Gaza, but also Lebanon, and keen on presenting the Israeli public with any kind of victory, the Israeli military began escalating its war beyond Gaza. This included the strike on the Iranian Embassy in Syria on 1 April. Despite repeated attempts, which included the assassination in Iran of the head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, on 31 July, an all-out regional war has not yet come to pass.

Another escalation was taking place, this time not by Netanyahu but by millions of people around the world, demanding an end to the Israeli war. A focal point of the protests were student movements that spread across US campuses and, ultimately, worldwide. Instead of allowing free speech to flourish, however, America’s largest academic institutions resorted to the police, who violently shut down many of the protests, arresting hundreds of students, many of whom were not allowed to return to their colleges.

Meanwhile, the US continued to block international efforts aimed at producing a ceasefire resolution at the United Nations Security Council. Ultimately, on 31 May, US President Joe Biden delivered a speech conveying what he termed an “Israeli proposal” to end the war. After some delay, Hamas accepted the proposal, but Israel rejected it. In his rejection, Netanyahu referred to Biden’s speech as “incorrect” and “incomplete”. Strangely, but also unsurprisingly, the White House blamed the Palestinians for the failed initiative.

Losing faith in the American leadership, some European countries began changing their foreign policy doctrines on Palestine, with Ireland, Norway and Spain recognizing the State of Palestine on 28 May. The decisions were largely symbolic but indicated that western unity around Israel was faltering.

Israel remained unfazed and, despite international warnings, invaded the Rafah area in southern Gaza on May 7, seizing control of the Philadelphi Corridor – a buffer zone between Gaza and the Egyptian border that extends for 14 kilometers.

Netanyahu’s government insisted that only war can bring their captives back. There was very little success in that strategy, however. On June 8, Israel, with logistical support from the US and other western countries managed to rescue four of its captives held in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. To do so, Israel killed at least 276 Palestinians and wounded 800 more.

In August, another heart-wrenching massacre took place, this time in the Al-Tabaeen school in Gaza City, where 93 people, mostly women and children, were murdered in a single Israeli strike. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, women and children were the main victims of the Israeli genocide, accounting for 70 per cent by 8 November.

An earlier report by the Lancet Medical Journal said that if the war stopped in July, “186,000 or even more” Palestinians would have been killed. The war, however, went on. The rate of genocide in Gaza seemed to maintain the same killing ratio, despite the major regional developments including the mutual Iranian-Israeli tit-for-tat strikes and the major Israeli ground operation in Lebanon.

In October, Israel returned to the policies of targeting or besieging hospitals, killing doctors and other medical staff, and targeting aid and civil defence workers. Still, Israel would not achieve any of its strategic goals of the war. Even the killing of Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, in battle on 16 October  would not, in any way, alter the course of the war.

Israel’s frustration grew by leaps and bounds throughout the year. Its desperate attempt to control the global narrative on the Gaza genocide largely failed. On 19 July, and after listening to the testimonies of over 50 countries, the ICJ issued a landmark ruling that “Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal.”

That ruling, which expressed international consensus on the matter, was translated on 17 September to a UN General Assembly resolution “demanding an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine within the next twelve months”.

All of this effectively meant that Israel’s attempt at normalizing its occupation of Palestine, and its quest to illegally annex the West Bank was considered null and void by the international community. Israel, however, doubled down, taking its rage against West Bank Palestinians, who, too, were experiencing one of the worst Israeli pogroms in many years.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, by 21 November, at least 777 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October 2023, while thousands more were wounded and over 11,700 arrested.

To make matters worse, Smotrich called, on November 11, for the full annexation of the West Bank. The call was made soon after the election of Donald Trump as the next US President, an event that initially inspired optimism amongst Israeli leaders, but later concerns that Trump may not serve the role of the saviour for Israel after all.

On 21 November, the ICC issued its historic ruling to arrest Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. The decision represented a measure of hope, however faint, that the world is finally ready to hold Israel accountable for its many crimes.

2025 could, indeed, represent that watershed moment. This remains to be seen. However, as far as Palestinians are concerned, even with the failure of the international community to stop the genocide and reign in Israel, their steadfastness, sumoud, will remain strong until freedom is finally attained.

December 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The future of the West Bank hangs in the balance

Despite concentrated efforts to eliminate resistance strongholds, ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, and escalation of violence, will the West Bank witness a Third Intifada?

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | December 25, 2024

On the cusp of West Bank annexation and a settler-militia war on Palestinian civilians, the future of the territory will ultimately be determined by the course of grassroots resistance to Israeli conspiracies. While the Zionist Entity will likely soon see a territorial gain, its project could tremendously backfire.

As the Genocide in Gaza, the war on Lebanon, and regime change in Syria have stolen the headlines over the course of the past 14 months, the West Bank has also experienced a period of hardship that may soon land it top news story status.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation army and its allied settler militants have murdered over 720 Palestinians across the West Bank, making it the deadliest period there since the Second Intifada (2000-2005). In addition, hundreds of thousands of jobs have disappeared in the territory, as the local economy has continued to decline.

Making things even worse is the fact that Israeli settlers have established over 60 new settlement outposts on Palestinian lands, while they also worked alongside the occupation army to ethnically cleanse at least 26 villages and communities. Settler violence is at a historic high, as the Israeli regime continues to arm their extremist militias, has set up the Desert Frontier settler extremist military unit as part of their army, and allowed for continual assaults against Palestinian property, farmlands, and lives.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has installed hundreds of new roadblocks, walls, and gates, while maintaining a more imposing presence throughout the territory and adopting a very aggressive posture towards West Bank civilians. This has meant that traversing even small pockets of the territory has become more dangerous and challenging for Palestinians.

Palestinians now must act with great caution at checkpoints and makeshift roadblocks that are set up for them, where they could be randomly robbed of various items, deprived of the ability to travel to work, or worse, face arbitrary detainment, humiliation, beatings, and execution. Civilians have grown increasingly cautious about traveling at night due to the high likelihood of random settler attacks, against which they receive no protection.

Palestinians living in the West Bank endure financial, physical, and psychological torment, compounded by a heightened sense of horror over the events unfolding nearby in the Gaza Strip.

Many West Bank residents have remained relatively quiet during the Genocide in Gaza, driven by a sense of hopelessness and fear – a situation influenced by various factors that are poised to change dramatically.

So far, the refugee camps in the northern West Bank have proven to be the real centers of resistance and revolutionary action. The Jenin Camp, Nour al-Shams Camp in Tulkarem, and refugee camps like Balata and al-Ain in Nablus, have been isolated islands of armed resistance. However, without popular action, their capabilities remain confined to defensive maneuvers within their camps.

With US support, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is intensifying its crackdown on the Jenin Brigades resistance groups, signaling a concerted effort to eliminate resistance strongholds in the West Bank. This crackdown coincides with a critical moment for the PA, as it faces an existential threat from “Israel’s” looming pledge to annex the territory.

The Zionist regime seeks to conquer areas C and parts of area B, inside the West Bank, aiming to establish de jure governing control over these regions, placing around 70% of the territory under their civil control.

If this scenario unfolds, the Palestinian Authority will be confronted with three viable options: dissolve itself entirely, transform into a resistance movement, or attempt to strike some sort of deal that would keep it afloat as a mere contractor that manages the major Palestinian enclaves.

As the PA currently enjoys recognition at the United Nations as the representative of the State of Palestine and is poised to play a role in any post-war Gaza scenario, it still retains some relevance. Yet, without the ability to pave the way to a Palestinian State in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza through negotiations, it will face the inevitable challenge of pursuing armed resistance as its only option, which the PA has denounced for now.

Israeli annexation will inevitably destabilize the West Bank and the PA’s President Mahmoud Abbas has already named a transitional-phase successor, indicating that his old age will soon prevent him from fulfilling his duties. If Hamas succeeds – through a prisoner exchange – at liberating senior figures of the Fatah movement, which rules the Ramallah-based PA, it is possible that they could play a constructive role in unifying the Palestinian movement from abroad and pave an alternative path forward.

Another factor could be the potential unrest that could occur within Jordan, along with the unpredictable emergence of Palestinian resistance groups from the volatile climate inside Syria.

However, the Israelis understand well all of these elements and will seek to prevent any regional developments from working in the favor of the Palestinian people. Therefore, these possibilities should be acknowledged, but the primary focus here must be placed upon the inevitable response of the West Bank’s population at large.

With a severely weakened PA, escalation of violence, ethnic cleansing of villages, and inevitable mass displacement of civilians, amidst Israeli annexation, the people of the West Bank could be forced into a predicament that necessitates a Third Intifada. If the PA collapses altogether, this will force the Israeli army to deploy into the major Palestinian cities, which will lead to daily conflicts on a much larger scale than has been witnessed for decades.

A mass popular revolt from the West Bank will be needed to thwart Israeli plans at further land confiscation and ethnic cleansing, which will then plunge the entire territory into chaos. The main question is whether the Zionist Entity is capable of dealing with such a situation for a long period of time if a full-scale revolt occurs. Dealing with this scenario could require the deployment of army personnel, private security, border and police officers, totaling in the hundreds of thousands.

Not only would this be a massive financial burden, but it would also pose a potential security risk in the event that other fronts again activate in the future. As an example, at various points in the war against Gaza, the Israeli military had actually deployed more soldiers to the West Bank than it had been operating in the Gaza Strip.

The Zionist regime has never declared its borders for a reason, as it has always sought to further occupy territory at the expense of neighboring nations, a goal it is currently achieving at a rapid pace. While it is succeeding in the short term, the ultimate fate of this usurper project will be determined by the will of the masses.

December 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Israel’ Struggles to Deter Threat by Yemen’s Ansarullah

Al-Manar | December 24, 2024

Facing the escalating challenges from Yemen’s Ansarullah revolutionary group, the Zionist entity weighs its options, with no clear resolution yet to the significant threat posed by the intensified actions in support of Gaza over the past year.

Zionist officials and experts are deliberating strategies to counter these threats, with recent military responses proving ineffective at best, Al-Akhbar Lebanese newspaper reported on Monday.

Ansaruallah, having pledged its support to the Palestinian resistance, has disrupted maritime activity by targeting commercial ships heading to Israeli ports through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea. This strategy aims to pressure Israel to stop its genocidal war on Gaza.

Israel initially relied on US intervention, citing limited resources due to the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) spreading themselves thin across the northern and southern fronts.

However, US responses have remained tactical, with strikes limited to retaliation for disruptions to trade and supplies, their insufficiency as deterrence is highlighted by a recent friendly fire incident that destroyed one of their own jets.

Remarking on the US aggression, Yemen’s Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Al-Atifi warned Washington that the country was capable of sinking the US’s naval fleets, and was in possession of weapons yet to be revealed.

Despite Israeli airstrikes on Yemen, analysts agree these efforts have failed to deter Ansarullah, Al-Akhbar’s Yahya Dbouk wrote. The group has intensified its operations, reiterating its support for Gaza and vowing further action unless ‘Israel’ halts its genocide against Palestinians.

Israeli experts suggest alternative strategies, including targeting Yemeni leadership in Sanaa, weapon production facilities, and economic hubs such as ports and energy sites, as well as bombing Saada for its symbolism in the Yemeni public’s consciousness according to Dbouk, who added that proposals to strike Sanaa and Saada aim to weaken Ansarullah’s influence and mobilize opposition forces within Yemen.

As he considered that these measures are seen as unlikely to achieve decisive results, the Lebanese writer noted that Tel Aviv has also considered reviving the Saudi-Emirati led war against Yemen with Zionist support.

However, doubts remain about its feasibility, given the previous failures of the coalition to secure a military victory during the war waged by the Saudi-led coalition on the Arab impoverished country since March 2015, according to the author.

Another debated approach involves targeting Iran, viewed as Ansarullah’s so-called “primary supporter”, Dbouk reported, noting that this strategy, however, raises questions about the Zionist entity’s capacity to address broader regional threats in wartime.

On the other hand, a ceasefire in Gaza has been proposed as a potential solution to ease Yemeni attacks. Ansarullah themselves have said on multiple occasions that as long as the war on Gaza continues, so will the attacks from Yemen and the maritime trade disruptions.

Such option “seems likely to break quickly, due to a possible failure in the second phase of a potential swap deal between Gaza and ‘Israel’, which is widely believed in Tel Aviv will never see the light,” Dbouk wrote.

The Zionist entity continues to weigh its options, with no clear resolution yet to the significant threat posed by Ansarullah and its broader implications for regional security.

December 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Frustrated by Incessant Missile Attacks, Israel Threatens to Start Assassinating Houthi Leaders

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 24.12.2024

Israeli terror bombing attacks targeting Yemen’s port and energy infrastructure and a year-long US-led naval deployment in the Red Sea at Tel Aviv’s urging have failed to deter Ansar Allah (better known as the Houthis) from launching increasingly impactful drone and missile attacks.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has threatened to start targeting the Houthis’ leaders.

“We will inflict a devastating blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen,” Katz said.

“Just as we took care of Sinwar in Gaza, Haniyeh in Tehran and Nasrallah in Beirut, we will deal with the heads of the Houthis in Sanaa or anywhere in Yemen,” Katz warned, referring to the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah assassinated by Israel this year. “We will act both against their infrastructure and against them to remove the threat.”

Katz also took a pot shot at Iran, whom the US and Israel have regularly accused of backing the Yemeni militia, warning that “whoever sponsors the Houthi terror in Hodeidah or Sanaa will pay the full price.”

Iran, which has long denied providing direct military support for the Houthis, said Tuesday that the militia’s operations have forced Israel and the US to alter their calculations.

“Even under the heaviest bombardments from the American-Israeli coalition, they target the heart of the occupied territories with their homemade missiles,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a press conference in Tehran. “The Yemenis have proven they need no external assistance. Despite dire economic and military conditions, they have stood firm and resisted,” he added.

The Israel Defense Forces reported early Tuesday morning that they had intercepted a Houthi missile outside Israel’s airspace. Sirens wailed across central Israel amid fears of the missile reaching its target, with over two dozen people injured (one seriously) while running for cover in the panic.

Houthi official Hezam al-Asad vowed the group would continue its attacks “until the aggression against our people in Gaza stops.”

On the diplomatic front, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Monday instructed Israel’s diplomats in the EU and the UK to label the Houthis as a terrorist organization (currently, only Israel, the US, several Gulf states, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Malaysia do so).

“The direct threat to freedom of navigation in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes is a challenge to the international community and the world order. The first and most basic thing is to define them as a terrorist organization,” Sa’ar said in the directive.

On Tuesday, Sa’ar sent a letter to US UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield asking her to convene an emergency session of the Security Council to condemn the Houthis for their “flagrant violation of international law.”

In addition to their drone and missile campaign, the Houthis have done major damage to Israel’s merchant shipping fleet by imposing a partial blockade of the Red and Arabian Seas targeting Israeli-linked and Israel-allied shipping.

A Houthi missile penetrated Israel’s much-touted missile defenses Saturday, injuring 16 people in Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv. The IDF probe into the incident found that the warning system “was activated late for reasons that cannot be detailed.”

Another Houthi missile landed a direct hit in Tel Aviv last week, again overwhelming air defenses, with the militia characterizing the attack as their “natural and legitimate” right to respond to Israeli aggression.

The militia also scored a major PR victory against Israel’s US allies last week, reporting the shootdown of an F/A-18 jet during an attack on the USS Harry Truman supercarrier. The Pentagon said the jet was downed in a friendly fire incident. Whatever the case, the Houthis have confirmed kills of nearly a dozen US Reaper drones, and are known to have downed a number of US and NATO-made helicopters and fighter jets from the mid-2010s onward in their war against a US-backed Gulf State coalition.

December 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

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