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Injured survivors of Gaza aid chaos say Israeli forces shot at them

MEMO | March 2, 2024

Some Palestinians injured in a Gaza aid delivery disaster said on Friday that Israeli forces shot them as they rushed to get food for their families, describing a scene of terror and chaos, Reuters reports.

Health authorities in Gaza said 115 people were killed in the incident on Thursday, attributing the deaths to Israeli fire and calling it a massacre.

Israel disputed those figures and said most victims were trampled or run over.

However, one Israeli official also said soldiers fired warning shots in the air and then fired at those who did not move away and were seen as a threat, adding when asked how many people were shot that this was “limited fire”.

The incident underscored the collapse of orderly aid distribution in areas of Gaza occupied by Israeli forces with no administration in place and the main UN agency, UNRWA, hamstrung by an inquiry into alleged links with Hamas.

Four witnesses, who spoke at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in a video obtained by Reuters, said they were fired upon by Israeli forces, some describing tanks and armed drones being involved.

Mahmoud Ahmad said he began waiting on Wednesday evening for the convoy that eventually arrived on Thursday morning, saying hunger forced him to take the risk of going to the delivery route in hopes of getting flour for his children.

As the aid trucks came into northern Gaza, he went towards them but, he said, a tank and a “quadcopter” drone began to fire. “I was injured in my back. I was bleeding for an hour until one of my relatives came and took me to hospital,” he said.

“When the aid entered, the tank and quadcopter started firing at the people gathered, the people who went to get food for themselves and their children. They started shooting at them,” he said.

Jihad Mohammed said he was waiting at Nabulsi roundabout on the Al-Rashid coast road, the main delivery route into northern Gaza from the south.

“We went and waited for the trucks and then there was firing at all the people and then I was injured,” he said.

Asked if he believed Israeli forces had fired on them deliberately, he said “Yes, that’s right. They used tanks, soldiers, aircraft … all were firing towards us.”

Sami Mohammed was at the Al-Rashid road with his son waiting for the aid convoy to arrive. “My son ran to the beach and they shot him twice … one grazed his head and the other hit his chest,” he said. He said bullets and shells were fired.

The boy was lying in a hospital bed with bandages on his chest and arm and a cut on his face.

Abdallah Juha said he went to try to get a sack of flour for his parents. “We are very hungry. We don’t have food or anything. They fired at us … they squashed us,” he said, adding that the fire came from tanks.

Juha, who had a bandage on his face, was injured in the head by a bullet. “My little brother cries because he wants to eat. Where should I get him food?” he said.

Divergent accounts 

The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, said a UN team visited Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Friday to deliver medical supplies and met people injured in the incident.

“By the time of the team’s visit, the hospital had also received the bodies of more than 70 people who had been killed” it said.

An Israeli official said on Thursday there had been two incidents, hundreds of metres apart. In the first, dozens were killed or injured as they tried to take aid from the trucks and were trampled or run over.

He said there was a second, subsequent incident as the trucks moved off. Some people in the crowd approached troops who felt under threat and opened fire, killing an unknown number in a “limited response”, he said. He dismissed the casualty toll given by Gaza authorities but gave no figure himself.

In a later briefing on Thursday, Israel Defence Forces spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, also said dozens had been trampled to death or injured in a fight to take supplies off the trucks.

He said tanks escorting the trucks had subsequently fired warning shots to disperse the crowd and backed away when events began to get out of hand. “No IDF strike was conducted towards the aid convoy,” he said.

March 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Israel is destroying itself’ as Western media helps in the slaughter of Palestinians

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 01.03.2024

On December 28, 2023, the “paper of record” in the United States, The New York Times, published a piece that described acts of alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas during the October 7 attack. Since publication, independent media outlets have revealed significant issues with the piece.

The New York Times and other Western media outlets paved the way for Israel’s slaughter, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian-American academic and political analyst, told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Thursday.

“When The New York Times published that dishonest piece about rape on October the 7th, some Israeli [media] were rejecting those claims, [but] the Western media would not accept any of this. They closed their eyes and simply repeated the accusations in order to help the Israelis justify genocide and they continue to do so today,” he said.

The Times article’s co-author was later revealed as a former Israeli Defense Force officer who had no prior reporting experience and had liked posts that called Gazans “human animals” and advocated turning the Gaza Strip “into a slaughterhouse.”

The family of one of the victims featured heavily in the article later said the newspaper misled them, and the victim’s brother-in-law and sisters denied there was evidence that their family member was raped.

The Times has since said it is reviewing the author’s social media accounts, but has not retracted the article.

“In other words, what the New York Times and others did was that they prepared the ground so that Israelis could slaughter Palestinians, and no one in the West would complain,” he continued.

Marandi noted that anyone who is denying that “Israelis are intentionally massacring Palestinians” has been “closing their eyes to reality,” especially in the wake of videos released on Thursday that appear to show IDF forces firing on Palestinians gathering food from aid trucks.

“It’s quite clear that the Israelis use the trucks as bait and when starving people gather to find food for their starving children, the Israelis open fire.” More than 100 people were killed and more than 750 injured in the attack, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

But it is the mainstream media’s portrayal and non-coverage of these events that brainwash the masses, Marandi said.

“That’s exactly why the United States is not a democracy, why it’s never been a democracy. People are not allowed to have information,” he argued. “If people are being managed, if they’re being fed information that’s divorced from reality and then they make decisions based upon that information, that’s not democratic. That’s a brainwashed society that will do as it’s told.”

Despite the propaganda, the images coming out of Gaza are so horrific that even some of Israel’s most adamant supporters are turning against the US policy of unconditional support.

“Two-thirds of Americans [oppose] the current policy, according to one poll, the majority of even white evangelicals and the majority of American Jews are [in favor of a permanent ceasefire],” Marandi explained, referring to a recent Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) poll.

“The irony is that while the Israeli regime and its allies in Washington are the ones who are preventing a ceasefire from taking place, these are the ones who are going to lose the most by continuing the war,” Marandi argued.

“They can kill more Palestinians and they want to kill more Palestinians, but they are destroying their image. They are destroying their legitimacy in the eyes of those who thought they were legitimate previously across the world. So in my opinion, Israel is destroying itself.”

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden Aides Trying to Shield US President From Protesters at Campaign Events – Reports

Sputnik – 01.03.2024

WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden’s aides have adopted several tricks to protect their boss from protesters who are increasingly dissatisfied with the White House’s policies in the Middle East and unlimited support for Israel, NBC reported on Friday.

Biden’s aides’ tactics include avoiding protesters at events by making them smaller, keeping precise locations secret from the media and the public until the last moment, avoiding college campuses, and hiring a private company to filter attendees, the report said.

Even though the tactics have already shown their success and over the past five weeks there has not been a single incident of an attempt to interfere with Biden’s speech at an event, it also has drawbacks, including the president’s appearance in front of a smaller number of potential voters, according to the report.

“But the downside is that means he doesn’t reach as many voters,” an aide was quoted as saying. “The point is to reach as many voters as you can, and those small events don’t.”

White House aides are planning to use the tactics at an upcoming fundraiser event this month with Biden and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. More specifically, event organizers are going to hire a private company that will vet attendees to exclude those who can disrupt it, the report added.

In January, Biden’s campaign rally in Virginia was disrupted eight times by protesters demanding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Protests have taken place many times across the United States, including large marches in Washington with hundreds of thousands of people attending, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza in light of the thousands of civilians killed and wounded amid Israel’s military operations there.

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

‘State-minus’: Biden’s Palestine solution

Three decades after the Oslo Lie, neither the US nor the EU are in any position to dangle the promise of a Palestinian state.

By Stasa Salacanin | The Cradle | February 29, 2024

Is it sadly ironic that the issue of Palestinian statehood – unresolved for over 75 years – has resurfaced only after Israel’s wholesale carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip, killing over 30,000 civilians, injuring tens of thousands more, and destroying significant swathes of the territory’s infrastructure.

University of California (UCLA) historian James Gelvin states the case plainly:

“There would have been no serious discussion of a two-state solution without [the events of] 7 October. As a matter of fact, putting the Palestine issue back on the front burner of international and West Asian politics was one of the reasons Hamas launched its operation.”

As Gelvin explains it to The Cradle, Hamas has already scored several victories since its Al-Aqsa Flood operation: “The Palestine issue is back on the international agenda, it is negotiating the release of its captives as an equal partner to Israel,” and has demonstrated that it is “more effective in realizing Palestinian goals than its rival, Fatah.”

New ‘Biden Doctrine’

While the unprecedented, brutal Israeli military response has indeed illustrated the urgency for establishing a Palestinian safe haven, it is impossible to ignore that western state backers of the 1993 Oslo Accords – which laid out the essential framework for the establishment of a Palestinian state – have then so assiduously ignored and neglected that responsibility.

Even greater hypocrisy emerges from the fact that these western powers, led by Washington, have now decided to force the discussion of Palestinian statehood in the midst of Gaza’s carnage, with an Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is infamously opposed to it.

So, why is this debate possible now? Why was it ignored before 7 October – or even prior to Netanyahu’s return to the prime ministership?

After enormous public and international pressure, US President Joe Biden has, at least rhetorically, reopened the issue of Palestinian statehood. According to the New York Times, the Biden White House’s new doctrine would “involve some form of US recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for strong Palestinian guarantees that their institutions could never threaten Israel.”

In addition, the US president’s plan also envisages Saudi–Israeli normalization and a tough military stance against Iran and its regional allies. However, many analysts have already raised questions about the viability of a plan that does not reflect current ground realities.

While Netanyahu rejects the very notion of a Palestinian state, the ‘Biden doctrine’ and its offering of some limited-sovereignty version of a demilitarized Palestinian state is nothing less than humiliating for Palestinians.

Dr Muhannad Ayyash, Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University, observes that there is no fundamental change of approach by the US on this issue. In short, the Biden administration refuses to clarify what it means by a ‘Palestinian state.’ Its initiative appears mainly to advance a form of a two-state solution that would be palatable to Israel.

Ayyash points out that the key issues related to Palestinian statehood are left unanswered, including the issue of sovereignty, Jewish settlements, the status of East Jerusalem, a necessary West Bank/East Jerusalem connection with the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian right to return, and so forth.

As Israel has firmly insisted on retaining full security control over the entire territory west of Jordan – meaning, over all the territory likely to come under Palestinian (self-)rule – many experts fear that Israel would have the right to militarily enter those territories at will, without Palestinian consent, with the latter banned from assembling its own military force.

This version of ‘statehood’ is not remotely on par with that of other UN member-states, who are entitled, under the UN Charter, to exercise full sovereignty and defend their territorial integrity. Biden’s ‘solution’ of a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty is nothing more than the legalization of Israel’s perpetual occupation of Palestine.

A Palestinian ‘empty shell’

The revived debate on Palestinian statehood is also intricately connected to a big western public relations dilemma. The Atlanticists’ unconditional support for Israel’s illegal, disproportionate military assault against mostly female and child populations has deeply impacted their image and capacity to maneuver in West Asia and beyond.

This is especially true for Washington’s foreign policy objectives in the region, which are facing major, direct resistance on the ground in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

The revival of a two-state solution is, therefore, a “desperate act to salvage some of the credibility or legitimacy of these regimes (both Arab and Western governments),” argues Dr Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Professor and Abdulaziz Said Chair for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the American University in Washington, DC.

For decades, the US has capitulated to Israeli demands on pretty much everything Tel Aviv has ever asked for. In recent years, as Gelvin describes it, the US has mainly focused “on bribing various Arab governments – the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan – to normalize relations with Israel” through the “Abraham Accords,” which, in effect, took the Palestine issue off the table.”

Meanwhile, Arab states managed regional expectations by continuing to pay lip service to Palestinian issues while scuttling any opportunities behind the scenes. With few Arab state allies left, Palestinians themselves had no cards left to leverage – until 7 October.

Now, Israel is doing all it can to negate that day’s gains. Says Ayyash:

“Netanyahu wants to dispense with all pretension about the establishment of the Palestinian state and use this moment to establish full Israeli Jewish sovereignty from the river to the sea, whereas the Biden administration prefers a quieter approach that pretends to care about the aspirations of the Palestinian people in order to maintain its close ties with Arab regimes across the region.”

The two-state solution, according to Professor Abu-Nimer, is, therefore, nothing other than a “fig leaf” to resuscitate the west’s crashing image and should not be viewed as a serious US initiative. The proposed plan is “a skeleton or an empty shell which lacks of any serious form of sovereignty.”

Nathan Brown, an American scholar of Middle Eastern law and politics at George Washington University, largely concurs:

“This is not a step toward statehood but only reviving some provisions of the Oslo Accords. Even at a maximum, it would produce what would have been called a ‘protectorate’ in the nineteenth century, not a state.”

A Palestinian state is not on the cards 

Although the US and the EU could exercise immense leverage over Israel to revive the Oslo agreement and fast-track its provisions, they are doing nothing of the sort.

Today, there is a unique opportunity for Tel Aviv’s western allies to play this hand, given the utter collapse of Israel’s image worldwide and the mass public demand for the protection of Palestinians.

Instead, the Biden administration thinks that it can resurrect the two-state idea by mediating a grand regional deal – one that will deliver everything Israel wants, by dangling the promise of a rump Palestinian state.

The White House believes that the reward of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia will offset for the Netanyahu government a reversal on the question of Palestinian statehood and withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories.

Gelvin dismisses the plan, saying it simply won’t work on so many levels. For starters, “if Netanyahu commits to a Palestinian state and withdrawal from the occupied territories, his government will collapse and he will go to jail.”

Don’t expect anything spectacular from the European Union either. Although EU High Representative for Foreign Relations Josep Borrell has said that a Palestinian state may need to be imposed from the outside without Israel’s agreement, realistically, the range and reach of European foreign policy is minimal or non-existent. According to Gelvin, “the EU has no more leverage against Israel than Costa Rica.”

Abu-Nimer likely speaks for the majority of regional observers – who have seen this game play out before: these top-down western statehood formulas do not work without genuine engagement with Palestinian political representation – in this case, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations.

Thirty-one years after the Oslo Accords promised a Palestinian state, Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza and swallowing up the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Almost five months after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, some of the leverage is back in Palestinian resistance hands, and they are unlikely to trade their gains for an unsovereign rump state which diplomats are privately calling a ‘state-minus.’

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Heavy losses inflict ‘dramatic manpower crisis’ on Israel

The Cradle | March 1, 2024

The Israeli military is demanding an addition of at least 7,000 soldiers to its forces due to a serious manpower crisis. 

The 7,000 are needed on top of the soldiers already enlisting, the Israeli army said on 1 March. 

“The army requires standards for another 7,500 officers and noncommissioned officers, while the Treasury currently approves only 2,500. These are unprecedented numbers, which indicate the shock that befell the IDF following almost 150 days of fighting, which began with heavy losses on 7 October,” Hebrew news site Ynet reported, citing the army’s General Staff. 

“The army is compiling the data that will explain how dramatic the manpower problem is,” it added. 

Just one day ago, Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, called to end draft exemptions for members of the ultra-Orthodox community. Gallant said he would only support legislation allowing for continued exemptions if all members of the ruling coalition backed it. 

The minister asserted that “all parts of society” must “bear the burden” of service.

Gallant’s position could result in tension with ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition, viewed as integral to the current government’s survival, according to Hebrew media. 

However, the army’s demand for a boost in manpower “has nothing to do with politics or the demand for equal burden: The situation is simply not good and does not match the threat map,” Ynet wrote. 

Israel is taking severe losses in its genocidal war in Gaza and its attempt to eradicate the Palestinian resistance. 

While Israel claims that Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah is the final Hamas stronghold, the group’s military wing, along with several other factions, continue to fiercely confront Israeli troops across the strip. 

A source from within the resistance told Al-Mayadeen on Thursday that the Israeli army has been forced out of Gaza City’s Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, where it had been operating over the past eleven days in an attempt to clear out Hamas fighters. 

The source added that the neighborhood is a “graveyard” for Merkava tanks, and the “bloodied and torn” uniforms of Israeli soldiers are spread out across the battlefield. 

Clashes between the resistance and the army continued to rage on 1 March in several areas of Gaza, including the southern city of Khan Yunis and the Jabalia area in the northern strip. 

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Washington blocks UNSC statement condemning Israel for ‘Flour Massacre’

The Cradle | March 1, 2024

The US, on 29 February, vetoed a UN Security Council (UNSC) statement that would have condemned Israel for the mass murder of over 100 Palestinian civilians who were awaiting the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza City.

“We don’t have all the facts on the ground – that’s the problem,” US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told reporters on Thursday.

He then claimed there are “contradictory reports” about the Israeli army’s latest massacre and highlighted that Washington was focused on finding “some language that everyone can agree on.”

Thursday’s veto is the fifth time Washington has blocked a UNSC statement or ceasefire resolution that would hold Israel accountable for the atrocities it has committed in Gaza.

According to Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, 14 of the 15 council members supported the statement advanced by Algeria.

At least 112 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 wounded after Israeli troops opened heavy machine gun and artillery fire on thousands waiting for food on Gaza’s Al-Rashid Street, in what marked the first delivery of food to northern Gaza in several weeks.

“After opening fire, Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies,” Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul reported from the scene.

“We had come here to get our hands on some aid. I have been waiting since noon yesterday. At about 4:30 in the early morning, trucks started to trickle in. The Israelis just opened random fire on us as if it was a trap. Once we approached the aid trucks, the Israeli tanks and warplanes started firing on us,” a witness at the scene told Al Jazeera.

The Israeli aggression triggered a stampede, adding to the chaos.

“We were going to bring flour … then Israeli snipers shot at us,” another person in the area told the Qatari news outlet. “They shot me in the leg. I’m unable to stand up,” he added.

Tel Aviv changed its story multiple times on Thursday, first claiming the majority of victims were killed by the stampede and later saying that soldiers opened fire only after feeling “threatened.” Officials have yet to explain how the crowds of underfed and displaced civilians posed any threat to them.

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Time’s ‘New Antisemitism’ is More Woke Garbage

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity | February 29, 2024

We’ve all heard the “woke” assertion that some people cannot be considered racist no matter how they act or what they say while other people are destined to live their entire lives as racists no matter how they act or what they say. The key difference between the two groups of people is whether their ancestry dictates they be labeled among the oppressors or the oppressed.

People exercising rationality see through this nonsense. They can judge people’s actions and statements with no investigation of family trees required.

Reading the Tuesday editorial “The New Antisemitism” at Time one comes across a fair amount of interesting commentary. But, in the end, the editorial just ends up applying a variation of the now familiar woke garbage assertions to Israel’s ongoing war. The Israel government cannot be engaging in genocide in its war because Israel is “the Jewish state” and Jewish people have a long history of being much oppressed, plus people who say otherwise are antisemitic. That is how the author Noah Feldman wraps up the editorial.

Here is the Time editorial’s presentation of its conclusions on genocide and antisemitism:

There is something specifically noteworthy about leveling the [genocide] charge at the Jewish state—something intertwined with the new narrative of the Jews as archetypal oppressors rather than archetypal victims. Call it the genocide sleight of hand: if the Jews are depicted as genocidal—if Israel becomes the very archetype of a genocidal state—then Jews are much less likely to be conceived as a historically oppressed people engaged in self-defense.

The new narrative of Jews as oppressors is, in the end, far too close for comfort to the antisemitic tradition of singling out Jews as uniquely deserving of condemnation and punishment, whether in its old religious form or its Nazi iteration. Like those earlier forms of antisemitism, the new kind is not ultimately about the Jews, but about the human impulse to point the finger at someone who can be made to carry the weight of our social ills.

The Time editorial says people seeking to hold the Israel government to account for its actions and statements are applying a “genocide sleight of hand” rooted in antisemitism. However, critical readers will recognize that real sleight of hand is the rhetorical sleight of hand whereby the clever wording of the editorial is used in an attempt to absolve a government for its horrendous actions by defining that government as a perpetual victim and its accusers as inescapably antisemites.

February 29, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US, pushed by Israel, involved in widening war despite consequences: Iran FM

Press TV – February 28, 2024

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says the United States is involved in the expansion of the scope of the Israeli war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip to other fronts across the West Asia region.

Amir-Abdollahian stressed that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to widen the Gaza war and involve the United States in a way that goes beyond the all-out support Washington and some of its allies have already provided for Tel Aviv.

“The Americans do not yet have the necessary will to stop the war, but at the same time, they are sending messages expressing their unwillingness to expand its scope because they are well aware of the danger of expanding its scope,” the top Iranian diplomat said.

“On the other hand, they are expanding the scope of the war through their joint aggression with the UK against Yemen.Today in Europe, everyone talks about the necessity of stopping the war, but Britain is playing a double game.”

He made the statement in an interview with Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday,

Amir-Abdollahian added that Washington’s talk of reducing the intensity of the Gaza war, rather than stopping it, is a “mistake and malicious behavior that means giving the green light to Netanyahu” to press ahead with its months-long brutal aggression.

“I told the British foreign minister that the joint British-American aggression against Yemen is a strategic mistake that you are committing,” he said. Yemen has “proven that they do not trifle with any party regarding the security of their lands. They have been able to convey this message and clearly warned that ships carrying military cargo to Israel will be stopped.”

US hypocrisy on Gaza

The Iranian foreign minister also pointed to the US administration’s unswerving support to Israel in its brutal war on the besieged Palestinian territory and its continued supply of weapons and logistics to the occupying regime.

“Our information has it that the process of sending weapons from all American bases in the region and its warships to Tel Aviv is continuing,” he said, adding, “Islamic countries should not be turned into a place to supply weapons to the Israeli entity.”

Denouncing the US hypocrisy in dealing with the Gaza war, Amir-Abdollahian said, “Everyone agrees that if the United States abandons its military support for the occupying entity, Netanyahu will not be able to continue the war against Gaza for even an hour.”

The top Iranian diplomat also stressed that Israel did not achieve any of its declared goals in the war on Gaza, including the elimination of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, the group’s disarmament and the arrest of its Gaza-based leader Yahya Sinwar.

“The Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements are at their best despite all the challenges and difficulties, and that they have the material and human resources and capabilities necessary to continue to withstand a longer war than what we have seen so far,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

Praising the morale and steadfastness of the residents of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, he underlined that the Israeli plans in Rafah “will not translate into reality and the occupation will not be able to forcibly displace people to the Egyptian Sinai.”

UN performance ‘unacceptable’

Elsewhere in his interview, the Iranian foreign minister censured as “unacceptable” the United Nations’ performance regarding the situation on the ground in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, saying the UN Security Council has not fulfilled its duty in light of the United States’ use of its veto.

“The Security Council did not fulfill its duty as the US continuously and unilaterally exploited its veto power. Every prospect and proposal of a Gaza ceasefire has been rejected by the American veto, exhibiting a contradictory behavior to the banners of primary human rights. Even at the UN Human Rights Council, we still have not seen any adequate mobilization in this regard,” he said.

“Does the UNHRC not want to create a special committee that relays the facts and investigations into war crimes, genocide, and human rights violations being committed in Gaza? So far, we have not witnessed a singular decisive measure taken by any of the organizations that fall under the UN.”

Amir-Abdollahian said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had so far taken some good measures but had not been able to help the people of Gaza “in an effective and real way” through the existing mechanisms of the United Nations.

“In the Human Rights Council, we clearly see that everything is subject to the control of politicians and false human rights advocates,” he said.

Israel launched the campaign of death and destruction on October 7, after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups conducted the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the regime’s decades-long atrocities.

Israel has killed nearly 30,000 people and injured more than 70,000 others in Gaza since that October day.

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

China’s unexpected gains from the Red Sea crisis

Yemen’s Red Sea ban on Israeli-linked shipping has boosted China’s regional standing while miring its US adversary in an unwinnable crisis

By Giorgio Cafiero | The Cradle | February 28, 2024

The Gaza war’s expansion into the Red Sea has created an international maritime crisis involving a host of countries. Despite a US-led bombing campaign aimed at deterring Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned navy from carrying out missile and drone strikes in the Red Sea, the armed forces continue to ramp up attacks and now are using “submarine weapons.”

As these clashes escalate dangerously, one of the world’s busiest bodies of water is rapidly militarizing. This includes the recent arrival to the Gulf of Aden of a Chinese fleet, including the guided-missile destroyer Jiaozuo, the missile frigate Xuchang, a replenishment vessel, and more than 700 troops – including dozens of special forces personnel – as part of a counter-piracy mission.

Beijing has voiced its determination to help restore stability to the Red Sea. “We should jointly uphold the security on the sea lanes of the Red Sea in accordance with the law and also respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries along the Red Sea coast, including Yemen,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized last month.

As the largest trading nation in the world, China depends on the Red Sea as its “maritime lifeline.” Most of the Asian giant’s exports to Europe go through the strategic waterway, and large quantities of oil and minerals that come to Chinese ports transit the body of water.

The Chinese have also invested in industrial parks along Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coasts, including the TEDA–Suez Zone in Ain Sokhna and the Chinese Industrial Park in Saudi Arabia’s Jizan City for Primary and Downstream Industries.

Chinese neutrality in West Asia

Prior to the sending of the 46th fleet of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, Beijing’s response to Ansarallah’s maritime attacks had been relatively muted. China has since condemned the US–UK airstrikes against Ansarallah’s military capabilities in Yemen, and refused to join the western-led naval coalition, Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG).

China’s response to mounting tension and insecurity in the Red Sea is consistent with Beijing’s grander set of foreign policy strategies, which include respect for the sovereignty of nation-states and a doctrine of “non-interference.”

In the Persian Gulf, China has pursued a balanced and geopolitically neutral agenda resting on a three-pronged approach: enemies of no one, allies of no one, and friends of everyone.

China’s position vis-à-vis all Persian Gulf countries was best exemplified almost a year ago when Beijing brokered a surprise reconciliation agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, in which it played the role of guarantor.

In Yemen, although China aligns with the international community’s non-recognition of the Ansarallah-led government in Sanaa, Beijing has nonetheless initiated dialogues with those officials and maintained a non-hostile stance – unlike many Arab and western states.

Understanding Beijing’s regional role 

Overall, China tries to leverage its influence in West Asian countries to mitigate regional tensions and advance stabilizing initiatives. Its main goal is ultimately to ensure the long-term success of President Xi Jinping’s multi-trillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and keep trade routes free of conflict.

Often labeled by the west as a “free rider,” China is accused of opportunistically benefiting from US- and European-led security efforts in the Persian Gulf and the northwestern Indian Ocean without contributing to them.

But given China’s anti-piracy task force in the Gulf of Aden and its military base in Djibouti, this accusation isn’t entirely justified.

Beijing’s motivations for staying out of OPG were easy to understand: first, China has no interest in bolstering US hegemony; second, joining the naval military coalition could upset its multi-vector diplomacy vis-à-vis Ansarallah and Iran; and third, the wider Arab–Islamic world and the rest of the Global South would interpret it as Chinese support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Rejecting the OPG mission has instead bolstered China’s regional image as a defender of the Palestinian cause.

Speaking to The Cradle, Javad Heiran-Nia, director of the Persian Gulf Studies Group at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Iran, said:

[Beijing’s] cooperation with the West in securing the Red Sea will not be good for China’s relations with the Arabs and Iran. Therefore, China has adopted political and military restraint to avoid jeopardizing its economic and diplomatic interests in the region.

Dropping the blame on Washington’s doorstep

Beijing recognizes the Red Sea security crisis to be a direct “spillover” from Gaza, where China has called for an immediate ceasefire.

As Yun Sun, co-director of the China Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center, informed The Cradle :

The Chinese do see the crisis in the Red Sea as a challenge to regional peace and stability but see the Gaza crisis as the fundamental origin of the crisis. Therefore, the solution to the crisis in the Chinese view will have to be based on ceasefire, easing of the tension and returning to the two-state solution.

Jean-Loup Samaan, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute, agrees, telling The Cradle:

Chinese diplomats have been carefully commenting on the events, but in Beijing’s narrative, the rise of attacks is a consequence of Israel’s war in Gaza – and perhaps more importantly the US policy in support [of] the Netanyahu government.

But in January, after the US and UK began their bombing campaign of Ansarallah targets in Yemen, China began to weigh in with serious concerns about the Red Sea crisis. Beijing noted that neither Washington nor London had received authorization for the use of force from the UN Security Council, and, therefore, as Sun explained it, the US–UK strikes “lack legitimacy in the Chinese view.”

How the Red Sea Crisis benefits Beijing

China has capitalized on intensifying anger directed against the US from all over the Islamic world and Global South. The Gaza war and its spread into the Red Sea have delivered Beijing some easy soft-power gains and reinforced to Arab audiences the vital importance of multipolarity. This point was drummed home by Victor Gao, vice president of the Center for China and Globalization, when he told the 2023 Doha Forum:

The fact that there is only one single country which [on 8 December, 2023] vetoed the United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine War should convince all of us that we should be very lucky living not in the unipolar World.

Certainly, China has experienced some economic repercussions from the Red Sea crisis, although the extent of this is difficult to calculate. Yet Beijing’s political gains appear to trump any associated financial losses. As Sun explained to The Cradle, “The crisis does affect China, but the loss has been mostly economic and minor, while the gains are primarily political as China stands with the Arab countries on Gaza.”

In some ways, China has actually gained economically from the Red Sea crisis. With Ansarallah making a point of only targeting Israel-linked vessels, there is a widespread view that Chinese ships operating in the area are immune from Yemeni attacks.

After many international container shipping lines decided to reroute around South Africa to avoid Ansarallah’s missiles and drones, two ships operating under the Chinese flag – the Zhong Gu Ji Lin and Zhong Gu Shan Dong – continued transiting the Red Sea.

As Bloomberg reported early this month:

Chinese-owned merchant ships are getting hefty discounts on their insurance when sailing through the Red Sea, another sign of how Houthi attacks in the area are punishing the commercial interests of vessels with ties to the West.

US officials have since implored Beijing to pressure Iran into ordering the de-facto Yemeni government to halt maritime attacks. Those entreaties have failed, however, largely because Washington incorrectly assumes that Beijing holds influence over Tehran and that Iran can make demands of Ansarallah. Regardless, the fact that the US would turn to China for such help amid escalating tensions in the Red Sea is a boost to Beijing’s status as a go-to power amid global security crises.

China also has much to gain from the White House’s disproportionate focus on Gaza and the Red Sea. Since October–November 2023, the US has had significantly less bandwidth for its South China Sea and Taiwan files. In turn, this frees Beijing to act more confidently in West Asia while the US remains distracted. According to Heiran-Nia:

The developments in the Red Sea will keep America’s focus on the region and not open America’s hand to expand its presence in the Indo–Pacific region, [where] America’s main priority is to contain China. The war in Ukraine has the same advantage for China. While the connectivity of the Euro–Atlantic region with the Indo–Pacific region is expanding to contain China and increase NATO cooperation with the Indo–Pacific, the tensions in [West Asia] and Ukraine will be a boon for China.

Ultimately, the Red Sea crisis and Washington’s failure to deter Ansarallah signal yet another blow to US hegemony. From the Chinese perspective, the growing Red Sea conflict serves to further isolate the US and highlight its limitations as a security guarantor – particularly in light of its unconditional support for Israel’s brutal military assault on Gaza.

It is reasonable to call China a winner in the Red Sea crisis.

February 28, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

US senators slam Biden’s strategy against Red Sea operations

Press TV – February 28, 2024

A bipartisan group of US senators has slammed President Joe Biden’s handling of the Yemeni army’s attacks against Israeli-linked vessels, as well as American and British ships in the Red Sea.

The senators on Tuesday contended Biden should seek congressional authorization for ongoing military action against the Yemen-based movement.

The United States has been carrying out near-daily strikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement, who have said their attacks on shipping are in solidarity with Palestinians.

The Houthi Ansarullah movement said Yemen’s attacks against shipping in the Red Sea will only stop after the Israeli regime ends its aggression and blockade on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The American strikes have so far failed to halt the Yemeni attacks, which have upset global trade and raised shipping rates.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said during a congressional hearing with Pentagon and State Department officials that he had serious concerns about the legal authority the Biden administration was relying on for the strikes but also what impact they were having.

“Trying to re-establish deterrence, I don’t think you’re going to do it if the 200 strikes become 400 strikes, 800 strikes, 1,200 strikes,” Kaine said.

“I think you will re-establish deterrence when we get a hostage deal that leads us to a truce, that leads us to humanitarian aid into Gaza, that leads us to the ability to discuss, whatever that truce period is, can be extended,” he added.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that its strikes have so far destroyed or degraded 150 missiles and launchers along with radars, weapons storage areas and drones.

Yemen’s Red Sea operations would end in case a ceasefire is reached between the Israeli regime and the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, said Mohammed Abdul-Salam, who is also the chief negotiator of the Ansarullah movement.

He added that the situation would be reassessed if Israel ended its siege on Gaza and allowed humanitarian aid to enter the Palestinian territory.

Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after resistance movements in the territory carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on Israeli settlers and military forces in occupied Palestine.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they will not stop retaliatory strikes until unrelenting Israeli ground and aerial offensives in Gaza, which have killed nearly 30,000 people and wounded around 70,000, come to a complete end.

The maritime attacks have forced some of the biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

“The Constitution requires Congress to authorize acts of war. … We swore an oath to follow the Constitution. If we believe this is a just military action and I do, then we should authorize it,” Senator Chris Murphy, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Middle East subcommittee.

Murphy, a Democrat, said he would be in talks with his colleagues to introduce such an authorization.

Senator Todd Young, the subcommittee’s senior Republican, also questioned the Biden administration’s strategy.

“It’s imperative that the administration respond to these actions while demonstrating it is both a strategy for deterring aggression and appropriate legal doctrine,” said Young. “To date, I have not seen such a strategy put forward.”

The US Constitution gives Congress the right to authorize war, but US law gives the White House the authority to launch limited foreign military action.

The United States and the United Kingdom have been carrying out strikes against Yemen since early January after Washington and its allies offered Israel their full support amid attacks by Yemeni forces on Israeli-linked ships sailing to and from the occupied territories through the Red Sea.

Separately on Tuesday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that US “preemptive” strikes on Yemen on Monday had destroyed two anti-ship cruise missiles, three unmanned surface vessels and a drone in the Arab country.

It claimed that the destroyed missiles were being prepared to launch toward the Red Sea.

Two days earlier, the US and the UK said that they had targeted at least 18 military sites in eight locations across Yemen. The attacks included strikes against underground weapons and missile storage facilities, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter, they added.

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

Houthis Refute Claims They’ve Sabotaged Underwater Cables in Red Sea

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 27.02.2024

Israeli media reported on Monday that the Yemeni militia had targeted “four submarine communication cables” in the area between Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Djibouti.

The Houthis’ Telecommunications Ministry has denied reports by “Zionist-linked media” claiming that they have sabotaged major underwater telecommunications cables connection, Europe, Africa and Asia.

“The Ministry of Telecoms and Information Technology denies what has been published by the Zionist-linked media outlets and also what has been published by other media outlets and the social networks, on allegations as to what [has] been caused to Red Sea submarine cables,” the militia said in an English-language statement Tuesday, a day after an Israeli Hebrew-language newspaper reported that the militia had caused “serious disruption” to internet cables between Europe and Asia.

“Yemen Telecom affirms its pivotal role to continue and build up and develop the international and regional telecom and internet networks which are provided by the submarine cables running within the Yemeni territorial waters and will keep up to facilitate the passage and implementation of the submarine cables projects through the Yemeni territorial waters, inclusive the projects into which the Yemen Republic participated, by Yemen International Telecom Co – TeleYemen,” the statement added.

The Ministry pointed to recent statements by Houthi movement leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi committing the militia to keeping underwater cables and its relevant services “away from any possible risks,” and said the militia’s campaign “to ban the passage of Israeli ships” through Red Sea waters “does not pertain [to] the other international ships which have been licensed to execute submarine works within the Yemeni territorial waters.”

Houthi Politburo member Khuzam al-Assad told Sputnik that the militia undertook “no actions… aimed at damaging internet cables, and we have repeatedly confirmed this.”

Al-Assad said the claims of Houthi attacks on the cables were insinuations being pushed by Tel Aviv, Washington and London to try to turn global public opinion against the Houthis instead of “stopping the crimes of genocide committed by the Israeli Army with the support of the United States and the West against Gaza residents.”

The Israeli media report said four major cables, including AAE-1 (connecting East Asia to Europe via Egypt), Seacom (linking Europe, Africa and India), EIG (linking India and the Gulf to Africa and Europe) and TGN (linking France to India) had been hit, with most of the immediate damage expected to be felt by India and the Gulf States.

Western reporting on possible Houthi operations to sabotage underwater internet cables began to surface in January, with the BBC running a story in early February saying the Houthis “almost certainly would” target the cables “if they could,” while admitting that “the fiber cables, which carry 17% of the world’s internet traffic, lie on the seabed mostly hundreds of meters below the surface – well below the reach of divers.” Only a handful of countries, including the US and Russia, have the capability to sabotage this infrastructure using deep sea submersibles, the outlet said.

The Houthis began a months-long maritime campaign of ship hijackings, drone strikes and missile launches targeting Israel-affiliated commercial vessels in the Red Sea in November in solidarity with Gaza amid Israel’s ground assault into the enclave. The US announced the creation of a naval ‘coalition of the willing’ against Yemen in December, and started bombing the country in January to try to degrade the militia’s missile and drone capabilities. The Houthis responded by banning all American and British ships from passing through the strategic waterway, and launching attacks on US and British warships operating in the area.

The Yemeni militia has effectively shut the Red Sea down to up to 40 percent of its normal commercial traffic, adding tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to global shipping costs and disrupting supply chains worldwide.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Official Admits Only 85 Aid Trucks Entering Gaza Per Day

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 27, 2024

The head of USAID said on Monday that only around 85 aid trucks were able to enter Gaza each day, under 10% of the prewar number. The White House has touted that it has leveraged US influence to get Israel to provide more aid to the Strip. However, Tel Aviv is deploying a myriad of tactics to strangle aid shipments in Gaza.

“More than 500 trucks should be entering Gaza daily. In the past week, only ~85/day managed to get through,” Samantha Power, the head of USAID, posted on X. Power, who considers herself an expert on genocide prevention, has not called for a ceasefire or an end to US weapons shipments to Israel even as the International Court of Justice concluded Tel Aviv was plausibly waging a genocide in Gaza.

Before October 7, about 500 trucks entered Gaza daily to sustain the people. The number of Palestinians in the Strip needing aid has skyrocketed over the past four months. Nearly all 2.3 million Palestinians are displaced and do not have access to clean water or food.

Since Israel went to war in Gaza, Tel Aviv has used a multitude of methods to stifle aid deliveries, including attacking shipments. CNN reports that the Israeli military attacked a UN aid shipment in Gaza on February 5 after approving the trucks to travel through the Strip.

Additionally, Israel is preventing a US-funded food shipment from being unloaded at the port. Tel Aviv has enacted an onerous inspection regime that slows deliveries and prevents lifesaving medication from reaching the Strip. Israeli government agencies have denied visas to international aid workers, limiting the activities of dozens of organizations.

Israeli civilian protesters are also interfering with shipments by blocking and delaying trucks carrying the aid. Once convoys enter Gaza, they are mobbed by starving Palestinians. Recently, Israeli forces began targeting the police force in the Strip, making it harder for the trucks to move through Gaza.

Jordan has airdropped aid in Gaza 16 times since October 7 to bypass the backup at the border inspection checkpoint.

The Israeli onslaught in Gaza has thrown the Palestinian people into a horrific humanitarian crisis. Most of the medical facilities have been destroyed or shut down, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have suffered serious burns, cuts, and amputations.

In the northern half of the Strip, one in six children are suffering from acute malnutrition, meaning they could soon die of starvation or other deprivation. A two-month-old child succumbed to starvation in central Gaza last week. Palestinians are eating animal feed, grass, and rotten food.

The Biden administration has faced increasing pressure over its support for Tel Aviv as Israeli forces killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and annihilated most of the Strip. President Biden has touted that he has successfully pressed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to allow more assistance into Gaza. As with aid, Tel Aviv has ignored nearly all of Washington’s requests with no impact on US weapons shipments to Tel Aviv.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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