‘Efforts to Sideline UNRWA Doomed to Fail’: Israel’s Plan for Palestinian Aid Agency Raises Alarms
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 01.04.2024
The Jewish state has yet to verify its allegations that UNRWA – the largest aid organization in Gaza which has been supporting Palestinians since 1950 – was purportedly involved in the October 7, 2023 Hamas incursion.
According to The Guardian, Tel Aviv has demanded that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) be dismantled and its responsibilities and staff transferred to a new entity in exchange for allowing more aid into the Gaza Strip.
The newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying that the proposal was discussed by Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi and UN officials in Israel, and then handed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Under the plan, 300 to 400 UNRWA staff will be transferred either to an existing UN agency, such as the World Food Program (WFP), or to a newly established organization focused on food distribution in Gaza. More UNRWA staff and assets may eventually be transferred, although it remains unclear who would administer the new entity or provide security for its operations.
UNRWA was not involved in the proposal-related talks because of Israel’s reluctance to interact with the agency amid Tel Aviv’s unverified claims that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 Gaza staff participated in the October 7 Hamas incursion.
Tamara Alrifai, the agency’s director of external relations, warned that Israel’s plan would undermine the effective distribution of aid in Gaza, while a number of UN insiders, as well as other aid agencies and human rights organizations, insisted that the proposal actually aims to eliminate UNRWA.
“If we allow this, it is the slippery slope to us being completely managed directly by the Israelis, and the UN directly being complicit in undermining UNRWA, which is not only the biggest aid provider but also the biggest bastion of anti-extremism in Gaza. We would be playing into so many political agendas if we allowed this to happen,” The Guardian quoted an unnamed UN official as saying.
Alrifai, for her part, stressed that if the World Food Program were to start distributing food in Gaza tomorrow, they would use UNRWA trucks and bring food to UNRWA warehouses and then distribute food in or around UNRWA shelters.
“So they’re going to need at a minimum the same infrastructure that we have, including the human resources,” she added.
The same tone was struck by Chris Gunness, a former UNRWA spokesman, who said, “It is outrageous that UN agencies like WFP and senior UN officials are engaging in discussions about dismantling UNRWA.” He recalled that it is the UN General Assembly “which gives UNRWA its mandate and only the general assembly can change it, not the secretary general and certainly not a single member state.”
Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, tweeted that “attempts to sideline UNRWA must stop”.
“UNRWA is the backbone of the humanitarian operation in Gaza. Any effort to distribute aid without them is simply doomed to fail. No other agency has the same reach, experience or community trust needed to do the job,” Griffiths pointed out.
Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzya, for his part, called for a review of the decision to dismiss UNRWA staff and also stressed the need to restore funding to the agency. He was referring to the fact that several countries, including the US, the UK, Germany and Japan, have suspended funding in response to Israeli accusations of UNRWA’s involvement in the Hamas attack.
Al-Shifa Hospital completely destroyed after Israeli forces withdraw
MEMO | April 1, 2024
The Israeli army withdrew from inside the Al-Shifa Hospital and the surrounding areas west of Gaza City early Monday, leaving scores of casualties and extensive destruction in the hospital and its vicinity, Anadolu news agency reported.
The army fully withdrew from inside the hospital and the surrounding neighbourhoods towards areas south of Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, southwest of Gaza City, witnesses told Anadolu.
The Israeli forces burned all buildings in the hospital resulting in complete cessation of services, the witnesses added.
They also noted that the army destroyed the specialised surgery building and burned the main reception and emergency building.
Israeli forces also burned the buildings of the kidney and maternity wards, mortuary refrigerators, and cancer and burn facilities, and destroyed the outpatient clinic building, according to the witnesses.
According to Palestinian medical sources, the hospital is now completely out of service and the army destroyed all medical equipment in the complex, operation rooms, and intensive care units.
The witnesses reported that scores of scattered bodies were found in the hospital and in the streets surrounding it.
They explained that the army destroyed the makeshift cemetery established by Palestinians in the facility and removed the corpses from it, scattering them in various areas of the hospital.
They further noted that Israeli forces burned and destroyed many homes and residential buildings in the vicinity of the hospital.
The Israeli army raided the hospital, the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip that houses thousands of patients and displaced people, on 18 March.
Israeli officers admit that most Gaza fatalities classified as ‘terrorists’ are civilians
MEMO | April 1, 2024
Israeli officers and soldiers have admitted that most of the fatalities classified by the army as “terrorists” during its war on the Gaza Strip are actually civilians, a report said Sunday.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz collected testimonies from officers and soldiers who have fought in Gaza during the war, which has been ongoing since Oct. 7, 2023.
“The Israeli army says 9,000 terrorists have been killed since the Gaza war began,” the report said.
Israeli officials and soldiers, however, told Haaretz that “these are often civilians whose only crime was to cross an invisible line drawn by the Israeli army.”
“We were explicitly told that even if a suspect runs into a building with people in it, we should fire at the building and kill the terrorist, even if other people are hurt,” one soldier told the newspaper.
According to the testimonies of the officers and soldiers, the Israeli army fires at anyone entering the “kill zone” it has defined, whether armed or civilians.
A reserve officer said that “in practice, a terrorist is anyone the army has killed in the areas in which its forces operate.”
“They ask you how many, and I give a number based on what we see and understand on the ground, and we move on. It’s not that we invent bodies, but no one can determine with certainty who is a terrorist and who was hit after entering the combat zone of an Israeli force,” he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing severe criticism within Israel for failing to achieve the goals of the war on Gaza, particularly in eliminating the Palestinian group Hamas and returning Israeli hostages.
PA forces covertly entered Gaza to ‘sow chaos’ in coordination with Shin Bet: Report
The Cradle | April 1, 2024
Gaza security officials have accused the West Bank-ruling Palestinian Authority (PA) of deploying covert operatives to the besieged enclave with the goal of “sowing chaos” within the resistance in a scheme coordinated with Israel’s internal spy agency, the Shin Bet.
According to a senior official who spoke with Arabic media, the covert mission took place on the night of 30 March and saw several PA forces sneak into Gaza via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt by escorting trucks carrying humanitarian aid from the Egyptian Red Crescent.
“The suspicious security force that entered yesterday with Egyptian Crescent trucks coordinated its operations entirely with the occupation forces,” an official from the Gaza interior ministry told Al-Aqsa TV on Sunday.
The plan reportedly called to “create a state of confusion and chaos among the ranks of the [Gaza] home front” in an arrangement reached between Tel Aviv and Ramallah “in their meeting in one of the Arab capitals last week.”
Gaza security forces managed to detain 10 of the operatives and are on the hunt for an unknown number of others who evaded capture. Officials also say Cairo informed the border crossing authority that it was “unaware” of the covert force.
The PA forces are reportedly affiliated with the General Intelligence Service in Ramallah and were deployed on an “official mission under direct orders” from the head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, Major General Majid Faraj.
Faraj’s name made headlines last month when Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put his name forward as a possible candidate to “temporarily manage” the Gaza Strip after the genocide of Palestinians comes to an end.
“The 61-year-old Faraj is a close associate of [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas and has close working ties with Israel’s defense establishment … He is responsible for coordinating between Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, American CIA, and other international intelligence organizations,” a report by Israel’s i24NEWS details.
For its part, the PA denied all accusations to Palestinian news agency WAFA, calling them “baseless.” “We will continue to provide everything necessary to provide relief to our people, and we will not be drawn into frenzied media campaigns that cover up the suffering of our people in the Gaza Strip and the killing, displacement, and starvation they are subjected to,” an unnamed PA official told WAFA.
Saturday’s operation came just hours before a new PA government was officially sworn into office as part of a US-drafted plan that calls for a “reformed PA” to control the occupied Palestinian territories.
Popular acceptance for the PA reached rock bottom long before the events of 7 October and the ensuing genocidal war in Gaza, as Palestinians increasingly expressed discontent over the group’s long history of corruption scandals, brutal repression of critics, and deep security coordination with Israel.
Senior IRGC commander, his deputy assassinated in Israeli attack on Iran Embassy’s consular section in Syria
Press TV – April 1, 2024
A commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Syria and Lebanon has been martyred in an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his deputy, Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, were killed in the Israeli attack on Monday on the Consular Section of the Embassy.
Syria’s official news agency, SANA, said the strikes were carried out by “the Israeli enemy” and targeted the Mezzeh neighborhood in Damascus on Monday afternoon.
Iran’s Ambassador to Damascus Hossein Akbari confirmed the reports of the Israeli attack and said the regime had targeted the consular building with six missiles.
Akbari said seven people were martyred in the Israeli aggression but the names and the exact number of martyrs have yet to be specified. He also noted that several Iranian military advisors and diplomats were also martyred in the missile attack, whose names would be announced later.
According to the ambassador, the Consular Section of the Embassy was targeted by F-35 fighter jets and six missiles.
Born in 1960, Zahedi joined the IRGC in 1980 and was a commander of the elite force during the Iraqi-imposed war in 1980-88.
He was the commander of the IRGC Air Force from 2005 to 2006. Later he served as the IRGC Ground Force Commander from 2006 to 2008.
Zahedi served as a commander of the IRGC Quds Force from 2008 to 2016.
Consular Section of Iranian Embassy in Damascus comes under missile attack
A building next to the Iranian Embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus comes under a missile attack on April 1, 2024. (Photo by Sputnik)
Press TV – April 1, 2024
The Consular Section of the Iranian Embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus has come under a missile attack, with immediate reports of casualties as a result of the act of aggression.
Syria’s official news agency, SANA, said the strikes were carried out by “the Israeli enemy” and targeted the Mezzeh neighborhood in Damascus on Monday afternoon.
“At approximately 00:17 p.m. today, the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting the Iranian consulate building in Damascus,” SANA said, citing a military source as saying.
“Our air defense media responded to the aggression’s missiles and shot down some of them. The aggression led to the destruction of the entire building and the martyrdom and injury of everyone inside, and work is underway to recover the bodies.”
SANA, citing one of its correspondents, said the Israeli aggression also caused major destruction to “neighboring buildings.”
Unconfirmed reports said several people had lost their lives in the occupying regime’s airstrikes.
Iranian sources added that members of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Damascus, including the ambassador, are unharmed, but the consulate building was destroyed.
The Photo shows the Consular Section of the Iranian Embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus that came under a missile attack on April 1, 2024. (Via Tasnim News Agency)
Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad has visited Iran’s Embassy following the missile attack.
Condemning the Israeli aggression, Mekdad said, “The Israeli occupation entity will not be able to influence the relations between Iran and Syria.”
A potential UAE-Hezbollah thaw?
By Radwan Mortada | The Cradle | March 31, 2024
The veiled details behind the recent visit of Wafiq Safa, head of Hezbollah’s Liaison and Coordination Unit, to the UAE remain undisclosed. Rumors propagated by Saudi media have tried to insinuate that the Lebanese resistance party aims to placate its stance towards Israel, possibly even contemplating concessions.
This narrative seeks to undermine or distort any real achievements gained during the rare trip. Despite all the conjecture, one development is undeniable: there has been a nascent shift in thawing the longstanding hostilities between Hezbollah and the UAE — a prominent Arab ally of both the US and Israel.
Strained relations
The sudden revelation of Safa’s visit to the Persian Gulf state on 19 March was indeed astonishing — a first by a senior Hezbollah official in many years — particularly given Abu Dhabi’s active role in clamping down on even pro-Hezbollah sentiments within the UAE.
The UAE’s track record includes arbitrary arrests and expulsions of Lebanese nationals under all sorts of dubious charges, often subjecting them to inhumane treatment, exemplified tragically in the case of Lebanese businessman Ghazi Ezzeldin, who was tortured to death while in Emirati custody last year.
News reports suggest that seven Lebanese citizens — four serving life sentences; two others facing 15 years in prison — remain incarcerated in the Emirates under charges of laundering funds for Hezbollah and Iran, and for the spurious claim of having made contact with Hezbollah. All of the detainees deny these charges.
In short, UAE authorities need little justification to accuse Lebanese individuals of ties to Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist entity in the Emirates.
The UAE, it should be noted, is Tel Aviv’s closest Arab ally in West Asia, marked by Abu Dhabi’s decision in 2020 to normalize relations with the occupation state — with Bahrain, the first Arab state in the Persian Gulf to do so. Despite Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza, economic ties between the UAE and Israel continue to flourish, further entrenching their alliance against common adversaries.
Against this backdrop, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad emerges as an unexpected mediator, leveraging his amicable relations with the UAE leadership, united in their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Behind the scenes, the UAE has been quietly leveraging its international clout to lift US Caesar Act sanctions on Syria, with an eye on participating in the war-torn country’s reconstruction efforts. As the first Arab state to break Assad’s diplomatic isolation, the UAE has now seized the opportunity to engage with Hezbollah via its renewed Damascus channel.
Preliminary discussions, facilitated by Syrian General Intelligence Director Major General Hossam Louka, bridged the gap between the two parties. These exchanges, held on Syrian soil, involved representatives from both Hezbollah and UAE officials.
Louka also visited Lebanon and the UAE to meet with Emirati officials and the leadership of Hezbollah and convey a detailed message to Assad.
Contrary to the many sensationalized reports in regional media, informed sources tell The Cradle that Safa encountered no explicit demands from UAE officials during his visit. Instead, discussions centered on two pivotal objectives: first, securing the release of Lebanese detainees unjustly incarcerated in the UAE under charges of affiliation with Hezbollah, and second, improving the precarious conditions Lebanese expatriates face in the UAE, where their presence is securitized by the state.
The sources affirm the constructive nature of the meetings and indicate there may be imminent releases of the Lebanese detainees before the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
What do both parties want?
But the timing of Safa’s visit, as Israel escalates airstrikes on Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, raises speculation about the implications of this renewed relationship. Safa himself is on a US sanctions list, while Hezbollah retains its designation as a terrorist organization by both Washington and the Persian Gulf states.
The UAE, having previously subjected Lebanese nationals to unjust treatment, now initiates efforts to mend ties with Hezbollah. Conversely, Hezbollah, having waged a war to free prisoners from Israeli detention, displays a willingness to engage in dialogue, even if the optics of its representative shaking hands with UAE officials may not be well-received back home.
Following the visit, Hezbollah issued a very brief statement:
“The head of the Liaison and Coordination Unit, Hajj Wafiq Safa, visited the United Arab Emirates as part of the ongoing follow-up to address the case of a number of Lebanese detainees there, where he met with a number of officials concerned with this case, and [a solution to this issue will be reached hopefully].”
Nevertheless, the underlying question remains: What does the UAE seek to achieve? Did it initiate this thaw in relations merely to reopen its embassy in Lebanon after years of closure and diplomatic strife? Does the UAE have hidden intentions concealing these superficial objectives — and what role could Hezbollah play in this equation?
Outreach to Iran via its allies
Early this year, as the regional war expanded, CIA Director William Burns wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine: “The key to Israel’s — and the region’s — security is dealing with Iran.”
Abu Dhabi too, knows that the relationship with Tehran is pivotal to resolving crises in the region. Hence, the UAE has taken a significant stride towards Hezbollah, recognizing its critical regional role. While this unusual meeting could have taken place in Damascus, in secret, the UAE opted instead for a public airing and even arranged for Safa’s transportation via plane to the Emirates.
Moreover, Abu Dhabi’s interest in improving relations with Hezbollah and its leadership could have direct security benefits. The Lebanese party has influence with Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, whose naval operations in the Red Sea and other waterways are impacting international navigation and, thus, Emirati interests from the Persian Gulf to the Horn of Africa.
While a Syrian source tells The Cradle that the meeting yielded positive outcomes and is likely to be followed by further engagements, the visit carries implications that extend well beyond the immediate parties involved.
Beyond improving Hezbollah-UAE or Iran-UAE understandings, it will be essential to monitor the subsequent actions of Saudi Arabia’s leadership after this event.
In essence, these developments could lead to improved future relations between Hezbollah and Arab states of the Persian Gulf, in turn reversing Washington and Tel Aviv’s strategic target of clinching further normalization deals for Israel in West Asia.
Israel kills over 400 during Al-Shifa Hospital siege
The Cradle | March 31, 2024
Israeli forces have killed more than 400 people, including patients, the displaced, and medical workers during their 13-day siege of Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s government media office reported on 31 March.
The ministry added that during the siege on Gaza’s largest medical facility, where thousands of patients and displaced people are sheltering, Israeli troops have detained and tortured hundreds while destroying and or setting fire to 1,050 nearby houses.
On 27 March, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that Israeli forces had killed 13 children between the ages of 4 and 16 during operations in and around Al-Shifa in the previous week.
“Some of the fatal shootings occurred during an Israeli army siege while the victims’ families were inside their homes; others occurred when the victims attempted to escape via routes that the Israeli army had designated as ‘safe’ after forcibly evacuating them from their homes and places of residence,” the report stated.
Islam Ali Salouha, who lives close to Al-Shifa, told Euro-Med that Israeli forces killed his sons Ali, nine, and Saeed Muhammad Sheikha, six, while the family fled the area after being expelled from their home. Israeli forces specifically targeted the children with live bullets, he said.
Euro-Med reports that according to Salouha, on the afternoon of Sunday, 24 March, the Israeli army ordered everyone in the vicinity, through loudspeakers, to leave their homes or their homes would be bombed. He and his family fled on a corpse-strewn road that the Israeli army had designated for travel.
After walking only 10s of meters, Israeli forces opened fire on the family, killing the two children.
Salouha said that as they attempted to pull his two children off the ground, Israeli forces opened fire on them again, forcing them to leave Ali and Saeed on the ground and flee.
Safa Hassouna, a Palestinian woman living near Al-Shifa, told The National how she was forced to leave her home near the hospital when Israeli forces “broke in and forced them to leave.”
When Israeli forces began launching repeated raids on Al Shifa almost two weeks ago, Ms. Hassouna had decided to remain in her home to avoid shelling. However, Israeli forces later raided her home.
“They bombed the door and forced us out,” she said.
Hassouna said Israeli forces abducted her husband and two sons and told her to flee south with her daughter.
“They forced my husband and my sons to take off their clothes. They took them, and me and my daughter left,” she said.
Hassouna said her husband and one son have been released, but the fate of her other son is unknown. As he was escorted away, Israeli troops used him as a human shield for their tank.
“I don’t know anything about him, and I am worried,” she told The National from southern Gaza, where she is now staying.
“We are experiencing all the sorrow and sadness. Enough is enough.”
Russian athletes ‘not welcome’ at Olympics – Paris mayor
Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, Kiev, Ukraine, March 28, 2024 © Getty Images / Aleksandr Gusev/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
RT | March 31, 2024
The mayor of Paris has reiterated her proposal that Russian and Belarusian contestants stay away from this summer’s Olympic Games in the French capital, despite them being officially allowed to compete as neutrals.
“I want to tell the Russian and Belarusian athletes that they are not welcome in Paris,” Anne Hidalgo told Ukrainian athletes at a training center in Kiev on Thursday, while on a visit to Ukraine.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) initially pushed for a complete ban on competitors from Russia and Belarus after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. However, last December the IOC ruled that a limited number of people from the two countries could participate as AINs (individual neutral athletes).
Hidalgo told Reuters earlier this month that she would prefer for Russian and Belarusian contestants not to come at all. “We cannot act as if [the Russian military operation in Ukraine] did not exist,” she told Reuters.
When asked about Israel’s Olympic participation – in the context of the Gaza war, raging since the Hamas attack on October 7 – Hidalgo insisted there was no comparison to be made.
Sanctioning Israeli athletes is “out of the question because Israel is a democracy,” she stated.
Russia has slammed the IOC’s difference in approach to Israeli and Russian contestants. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the Switzerland-based body of “political activism” and called its approach self-discrediting.
The maximum numbers of Russian and Belarusian athletes that can qualify for the upcoming games are 55 and 28, respectively. The IOC has noted that the teams are unlikely to actually meet the quota, with some 36 Russian and 22 Belarusian athletes expected to make it to the games, according to IOC director James Macleod.
Participants from the two nations can only compete in individual events, and not team sports, under a neutral flag, and are barred from the Olympic opening ceremony.
Commenting on the restrictions faced by Russian and Belarusian competitors, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the move “destroys Olympic ideals and discriminates against the interests of Olympians.” Such restrictions run “absolutely contrary to the entire ideology of the Olympic movement,” he insisted.
Palestinian Political Groups Reject Israel’s Proposal to Send Arab Troops to Gaza – Hamas
Sputnik – 30.03.2024
TUNIS – Political groups making up the Alliance of Palestinian Forces have rejected Israel’s proposal to send Arab troops to the Gaza Strip, Palestinian movement Hamas said on Saturday.
On Friday, Axios reported, citing two senior Israeli officials, that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, during his recent visit to the United States, suggested forming a multinational contingent with Arab troops to bolster Gaza’s law and order and ensure safe humanitarian aid delivery.
“The factions of the Alliance of Palestinian Forces reject the Israeli proposal to send Arab forces to govern Gaza and warn against its consequences,” Hamas said in a statement.
The statement also claimed that the Israeli proposal was “a new Zionist trap and a lie.”
“Turning to certain Arab countries for help, it [Israel], together with the US, seeks to avoid a horrible defeat they have suffered … to get the occupation army out of the huge moor it finds itself trapped in the Gaza Strip,” the statement read.
Aside from Hamas, the Alliance includes Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and several other organizations that have their own military wings.
On Thursday, the International Court of Justice said that Israel must ensure the unhindered access of humanitarian aid and all necessary services to the Gaza Strip.
White House eases sanctions on violent Israeli settlers
The Cradle | March 29, 2024
The US has dramatically softened the sanctions it imposed on seven violent Israeli settlers by allowing them to use their accounts at Israeli banks, Israel Hayom reported on 29 March. The move makes the US sanctions, which allegedly were meant to punish the settlers for violent acts against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, essentially meaningless.
The US Treasury sent a letter to Israel’s finance ministry clarifying that Israel is not required to prevent the sanctioned settlers from making routine use of their bank accounts.
Earlier this month, The Atlantic magazine had referred to the sanctions as President Biden’s “doomsday option” against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his religious settler supporters.
However, according to Israel Hayom, the US announcement empties sanctions against the settlers of any practical content since freezing the bank accounts of the seven men was the only step that affected them in any practical way.
The sanctions continue to prevent the settlers from doing any financial transactions with US banks or traveling to the US, but as far as is known, they do not own assets in the US and have no intention of traveling there.
The US Treasury letter comes two weeks after Finance Minister Smotrich announced that he would not renew the Israeli state’s agreement to compensate banks in Israel that maintain relations with financial entities linked to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Israel Hayom reported that Smotrich refused to renew his signature on a document that protects from lawsuits to the Israeli banks, Discount and Hapoalim, which have financial ties with Palestinian banks.
Without this protection, the Israeli banks were expected to sever ties with the Palestinian banks, fearing that they would be exposed to international lawsuits on the charge of transferring funds to terrorists.
Since the PA’s economy depends on the relationship with Israel, this meant an immediate freeze of economic activity in the occupied West Bank, which is under PA control.
Israel Hayom added that the White House softened the sanctions on the settlers in response to Smotrich’s threat.
However, it is unclear if the sanctions were meant to punish the settlers or Prime Minister Netanyahu in any significant way.
The Guardian reported in February that according to Aaron David Miller, who served six US secretaries of state as an adviser on Arab-Israeli peace talks, the sanctions against the settlers are not a serious effort to pressure Netanyahu to agree to a Palestinian state, end Jewish settlement construction on Palestinian land, or end Israel’s mass killing in Gaza.
“They have all kinds of levers they could pull to demonstrate that they’re not just frustrated and annoyed but they’ve reached the point where it’s difficult for them to consider him to be a partner, or his government,” he said.
“They could have slow-walked a restricted military assistance, particularly munitions. They could have abstained on a UN security council resolution. Or they could have basically said we need a cessation of hostilities, and joined with the international community in pressuring the Israelis to stop. They have levers they could have pulled, but they haven’t done it.”
Featured Video
Col Douglas Macgregor: If We Go Back To BOMBING IRAN
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Britain’s secret role in the brutal US war in Vietnam
By Mark Curtis | MintPress News | November 16, 2022
There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show.
- UK sent SAS team to Vietnam in 1962, flew secret RAF missions to deliver arms, and provided intelligence to US
- UK governments lied to parliament they were not providing military advice to South Vietnam’s brutal regime
- Labour government secretly gave arms to US for use in Vietnam, stressing need for “no publicity”
- It also connived with Washington to deceive UK public over its support for US
- UK governments knew of atrocities against civilians but backed US war aims
- Whitehall only started to advocate a peaceful solution, on US terms, once the war became unwinnable
During its war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s the US dropped more bombs than in the whole of World War Two, in a conflict that killed over two million people. The wholesale destruction of villages and killing of innocent people was a permanent feature of the US war from the beginning, along with widespread indiscriminate bombing.
Britain’s role in the war has been largely buried and must be almost completely unknown to the public. When the UK media mentions the war now, reports often simply reference the refusal by Harold Wilson’s government to agree to US requests to openly deploy British troops.
Although this was certainly a public rebuff to Washington, Britain did virtually everything else to back the US war over more than a decade, the declassified documents show. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Russia Not Ruling Out West’s Preparing Another ‘Bloody Hoax’ in Ukraine – Diplomat
- Iraq, Pakistan ink Hormuz safe passage deals with Iran: Report
- CIA Waging Covert War Against Drug Cartels in Mexico – Reports
- ‘Utterly baseless’: Iran rejects Kuwait’s claim of hostile plot on its island
- Hidden deep in an NPR story about a man who threatened to kill Jews at Cornell… He admits he did it to benefit Israel
- Col Douglas Macgregor: If We Go Back To BOMBING IRAN
- Trump admits US sent weapons to fuel riots, terrorism inside Iran
- Iran sues US at Hague tribunal, demands war reparations for June 2025 aggression
- In letter to UN, Yemen calls for end to blockade, sabotage by US, allies
- China rejects Israel’s ‘groundless’ allegation of missile support for Iran
- If Americans Knew
- Nakba Day is almost here, but every day is also Nakba Day – Daily Update
- Gaza: ‘Doctors Under Attack’ Wins Top Award After Being Shelved by the BBC
- The Nakba at 78: A statistical snapshot of Palestine
- Israel Expels Father Louis Salman from Palestine
- How Israel Turned Eurovision’s Stage Into a Soft Power Tool
- Palestinians in Jerusalem receive only 7% of housing units
- If not stopped, Israel will wipe out Christians from Palestine by 2050: Bethlehem pastor
- Hidden Deep in an NPR Story About a Man Who Threatened to Kill Jews at Cornell… He Admits He Did It to Make People Love Israel
- Peter Mandelson: the untold Israel connection
- Epstein Advised U.S. Treasury on Crypto During Obama’s Iran Sanctions Push
- No Tricks Zone
- German Expert: “No Climate Crisis” …”Warming Generally Better For Humanity”
- New Paleo Research: Modern ‘Climate Change’ Has Had No Apparent Impact On Precipitation Patterns
- 90% Subsidized… Bielefeld Germany’s €7 Million Hydrogen Garbage Truck Fleet Sits Idle
- New Study: Declining Trends In 1980-2023 Tropical Cyclone Frequency, Accumulated Energy
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
Aletho News 