Iran and Saudi Arabia say Israel, its supporters inviting ‘destructive insecurity’
Press TV – October 11, 2023
Iran and Saudi Arabia have said that the Israeli regime’s crimes and the United States’ green light for the atrocities stand to invite “destructive insecurity” for the occupying regime and its supporters.
The remarks were made on Wednesday in the first phone call to take place between President Ebrahim Raeisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian chief executive’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, wrote on a message on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The comments came after the Gaza Strip’s resistance movements initiated their biggest operation against Israel in years on Saturday in response to the occupying regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians.
Codenamed the al-Aqsa Storm Operation, the campaign killed at least 1,000 Israeli forces and settlers, and led to many others among them being taken hostage by the resistance groups.
Shedding further light on the contents of the conversation between Raeisi and bin Salman, Jamshidi said, “…the 2 agreed on the need to end war crimes against Palestine.”
Israel has responded to the Palestinian operation by waging a “long” war against Gaza, for which it has called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists.
The Israeli war has killed at least 1,100 Palestinians, including 326 children, and injured 5,339 others.
The military campaign has seen the regime leveling entire districts and featured its use of banned white phosphorous munitions against densely populated neighborhoods.
Earlier this week, Israeli Minister for Military Affairs Yoav Gallant announced a “total blockade” to stop food and fuel from reaching Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said he was “deeply distressed” by Israel’s announcement of the complete siege.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza was extremely dire before these hostilities; now it will only deteriorate exponentially,” Guterres said.
Support not ‘indefinite’, White House tells Ukraine
RT | October 12, 2023
The US is running out of money for Ukraine unless Congress approves additional funding, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday.
“In the near term, we’ve got appropriations and authorities for both Ukraine and for Israel,” Kirby said during the daily press briefing. “But you don’t want to be trying to bake in long-term support when you’re at the end of the rope.”
“And in Ukraine, on the Ukraine funding, we’re coming near to the end of the rope,” he added. “Today we announced $200 million, and we’ll keep that aid going as long as we can, but it’s not going to be indefinite.”
Asked to define “near term,” Kirby said he could not point to a specific date, because that depended on how quickly Ukraine and Israel expended their equipment and ammunition “or what the need is and what our ability to do it is.”
On Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesperson assured reporters that the US had the ability to “continue our support both to Ukraine, Israel, and maintain our own global readiness.”
Kirby, however, admitted that the money previously appropriated for Ukraine by Congress is “not going to last forever” and that the lawmakers needed to approve more and soon.
“The sooner there’s a speaker of the House, obviously, the more comfortable we’ll all be in terms of being able to support Israel and Ukraine,” he said.
The House of Representatives has not had a speaker since last Tuesday, when Kevin McCarthy became the first-ever speaker to be ousted in a House vote, over an alleged secret deal with the White House to approve more Ukraine funding. Several Republicans led the charge against their California colleague, backed by all of the minority Democrats. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican nominee to succeed McCarthy, has been supportive of funding Ukraine in the past.
Since February 2022, when the conflict with Russia escalated, the US has channeled almost $44 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine, as well as billions more in cash, humanitarian and economic assistance.
326 Palestinian children killed as Israel plunges Gaza into darkness
Defense for Children International – Palestine | October 11, 2023
Israeli authorities prohibit food, fuel, electricity, and water into the Gaza Strip as Defense for Children International – Palestine has so far confirmed the killing of at least 105 Palestinian children since Saturday, with the total now surpassing 300.
DCIP has confirmed the killing of at least 105 Palestinian children in direct Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip between October 7 and 11, while the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced today that over 326 children have been killed. DCIP staff in Gaza and the West Bank continue to document and confirm Palestinian child fatalities as hostilities continue between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces. Intensive Israeli bombardment throughout the Gaza Strip, lack of electricity, Israeli airstrikes on telecommunications infrastructure, and the unprecedented rate of daily child fatalities has resulted in a lag between confirmed fatalities by DCIP and the overall total child fatalities published regularly by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
“Israeli forces are destroying entire neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip as an apparent full-scale ground assault is imminent,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Immediate humanitarian relief is necessary to protect civilians as Israeli forces prepare to intensify attacks and Israeli officials declare their intention to commit further war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Around 6 p.m. on October 9, Israeli warplanes targeted, without prior warning, a two-story building behind the Golden Hall in the Americana area west of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 14 Palestinians, including at least six children: siblings Karam, three, Akram, 10, Watan, one, Mahmoud, nine, Amani, four, and Fatima Mohammad Abdulrahim Al-Madhoon, seven, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Rescue teams were able to recover seven bodies.
An Israeli airstrike targeted without prior warning a residential building in Jabalia refugee camp around 9 a.m. on October 10, killing four Palestinians, including three children: Mohammad, two, Karam, three, and Naheda Mousa Yousef Al-Hesi, 11, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Other children were also injured in the attack.
Israeli warplanes targeted a residential building without prior warning around 11 a.m. on October 10 in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, killing 14 Palestinians, including seven children, according to documentation collected by DCIP. The airstrike killed seven children from the Ahmad family: siblings Mustafa, nine, and Elayn Tamer Mohammad Ahmad, four, their cousins Sidra, five, Haidy, one, Linda, seven, and Qusai Mohammad Aladdin Ahmad, three, as well as another cousin, two-year-old Obaida Rafat Aladdin Ahmad.
Israeli warplanes completely destroyed a three-story residential building without warning in the Tal Al-Zaatar area of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip around 9:25 p.m. on October 10, killing everyone inside, including at least one child, 10-year-old Mohammad Baraa Taysir Shahin, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Palestinian civil defense teams have recovered two bodies from the building, while an estimated 10 Palestinians were inside during the bombing.
In addition to these incidents, DCIP has verified the killing of an additional 11 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip in other attacks, though DCIP field researchers are still gathering and verifying details of the incidents. Those killed include:
- Ali Omar Mousa Al-Qatnani, four, from Jabalia
- Siblings Layan, two and Majd Mohammad Ismail Salah, two, from Beit Lahia
- Haitham Khaled Abdulazeem Asayleh, 17, from Jabalia
- Hassan Mohammad Ismail Salah, nine, from Jabalia
- Malak Mohammad Majed Al-Daqs, two, from Jabalia
- Kenan Mohammad Mahmoud Farhat, two, from Jabalia
- Cousins Nadeen Mohammad Abdulati Salah, 13, and Diaa’ Ahmad Abdulati Salah, six months, from Jabalia
- Mohammad Hassan Ali Al-Zain, seven, from Khan Younis
- Sham Mohammad Saleh Al-Sawalha, eight months, from Jabalia
Israeli forces unleashed a massive military offensive on the Gaza Strip on Saturday after Palestinian armed groups fired rockets toward Israel and breached the Israeli perimeter fence surrounding Gaza early on October 7, launching attacks inside Israel. Israeli forces initiated a large-scale military operation dubbed Operation Iron Swords.
At least 1,100 Palestinians, including at least 326 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Saturday morning, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. DCIP is working to document additional attacks and killings. Israeli forces have shot and killed six Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank since October 7, including 12-year-old Ahmad Abdulnaser Adnan Rabi.
DCIP previously confirmed the killing of at least 74 Palestinian children in direct Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip between October 7 and 10, 2023, in a report issued yesterday.
Over 263,934 people in the Gaza strip have fled their homes as mass displacement escalates with intensifying Israeli attacks, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). More than 175,486 internally displaced Palestinians are sheltering in 88 United Nations schools throughout the Gaza Strip, while over 73,900 Palestinians, whose homes have been destroyed or damaged, are hosted by relatives and neighbors, according to UN OCHA.
Netanyahu wants US involved in war – ex-Pentagon official
RT | October 11, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like Washington directly involved in the conflict with Hamas because he hopes to expand the war to Lebanon and Iran, former senior security policy analyst at the US Department of Defense, Michael Maloof, told RT on Wednesday.
On Monday, the US ordered the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and five guided missile destroyers to the Eastern Mediterranean. According to Maloof, this “meets Netanyahu’s wildest dreams.”
“He wanted the US involved in this conflict,” the former Pentagon official told RT.
Netanyahu “wants to open up the war with Lebanon, by attacking Hezbollah” in pursuit of his ultimate objective, “to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Maloof added. For that to happen, “he has to have a Gulf of Tonkin moment, if you will.”
Maloof recalled how US President Lyndon Johnson essentially started the Vietnam War by sending ships to the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. An alleged North Vietnamese attack on two US destroyers was then used as a pretext for direct involvement.
The US has also pledged to help Israel with deliveries of weapons and ammunition, with the Pentagon insisting it has enough to do so and continue supplying Ukraine. Maloof is skeptical of that assertion, however.
He also told RT it was “not surprising” that some of the weapons Washington had sent Kiev ended up in the hands of Hamas.
That accusation was first made by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Ukraine’s military intelligence, the GUR, responded on Monday by accusing Russia of sending captured Western weapons to Hamas militants in a “false flag” operation designed to make Kiev look bad to its backers.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the weapons claim, but rejected the Ukrainian insinuations of Russian involvement in the Hamas attack as “complete nonsense.”
How Western media, social media influencers peddle lies to vilify Palestinians
By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | October 11, 2023
Since the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance operation “Al Aqsa Storm” on Saturday, mainstream Western media and social media influencers have been aggressively pushing Zionist narratives as part of a murky disinformation campaign against the resistance.
The multi-front information war is designed to control the narrative around anything surrounding the Palestinian issue and the latest military operation that has shaken the foundation of the regime.
Now more than ever, it is becoming clear that Western governments and their ruling class, which have a tight grip on media and information control, are losing the battle of ideas.
Palestinian support in the West is at an all-time high, despite Western leaders coming out in the open in defense of the Zionist regime and its relentless and indiscriminate aggression against Palestinians.
Western leaders came out in unison on Saturday to tow the same false narrative: That the Hamas operation is “unprovoked,” that the Israeli regime is “just” in its decades-long ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and that the Palestinian resistance is “terrorism.”
However, the world saw past these imperialist lies. Millions of people in the West, from New York to London to Paris, poured into the streets to pledge their support to Palestine and the Palestinian resistance, despite their own governments denouncing the Palestinian cause.
In fact, the rallies themselves began to be denounced by Western officials, who despite their aggressive rhetoric against the Palestinian cause saw no end to the outpouring of support for Al Aqsa Storm.
Now, the West and its media apparatuses have turned to their usual assortment of disinformation campaigns to muddy the line between fact and reality.
Perhaps the most egregious claim came from Zionist outlet “i24 News.” Nicole Zedeck, a reporter, falsely claimed that “40 Israeli babies” were killed, and that some were “decapitated.”
Obviously a jarring claim, many netizens pushed back asking for more details or any source that could corroborate this claim, which is part of the disinformation campaign.
Zedeck walked back the claim, saying Zionist soldiers told her this was happening – but the post, which still has not been deleted – or retracted – has been proven categorically false by media outlets.
The multiple high-profile accounts on X (formerly Twitter) shared Zedeck’s baseless claim, disseminating the proven lie to millions of people across the world.
Perhaps most frustrating of all is that while this claim of Israeli babies being killed was spread with no source or proof, very real footage of martyred Palestinian babies being pulled from the Gaza rubble was also being shared – but without the solidarity of any Western influencer accounts.
Another similar example was shared of a woman, Shani Louk, allegedly being held hostage by Hamas.
Zionist influencers claimed she was sexually assaulted and murdered. Later, the woman’s own mother confirmed she was safe and that Hamas had taken her to a hospital in the Gaza Strip – the same hospital targeted multiple times by Israeli warplanes.
This is a very intentional strategy of the Zionist regime, and the West – when their narrative is being challenged by reality itself, they will not be above spreading lies and refusing to apologize or issue a real retraction when they are caught.
The claims are instead echoed by official Zionist accounts as reality without citation, leading media outlets in the West to print the story verbatim.
Even the celebrity apparatus of the West plays a significant role in disseminating false claims – and then quietly walking them back after millions of people were exposed to flagrant lies.
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis published a photo on Instagram of terrified children looking at the sky, with a caption expressing solidarity with the Zionist State. When netizens correctly identified the children in the photo as children of Gaza, fleeing from a Zionist airstrike, she quickly deleted the photo.
The strategy of publishing lies and issuing a whimper of a retraction (if any at all) has been an imperialist strategy for decades.
The US entry into Vietnam was sparked by a false report of an attack on a US warship in the Gulf of Tonkin. The US illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 was due to a made-up claim of weapons of mass destruction. The invasion of Afghanistan before that was also based on false assumptions.
Iran’s foreign-plotted riots were caused by a categorical lie peddled by accounts known to be on the payroll of the United States intelligence agencies – then were spread using a vast network of online bots and influencer accounts.
Western celebrities and influencers then picked up the story to smear the Islamic Republic, despite multiple witnesses and CCTV footage proving the tragic death of Mahsa Amini was of natural causes.
More recently, after a 16-year-old Iranian girl Armita Geravand fell unconscious at the Tehran subway, social media accounts and news media in the West jumped on the bandwagon, claiming “torture.”
Western media apparatus and celebrity apparatus are intertwined. They are part of a sophisticated system that is forced into place by the US ruling class and further strengthened by the Zionist lobby.
Any deviation – meaning support for Palestine – is met with categorically false claims of anti-semitism, racism, or outlandish smear campaigns.
Western outlets will never publish about the true carnage unleashed upon the people of Gaza – the women and children who were martyred.
They will never publish, for example, the video of Israeli soldiers shutting off the water to Gaza – already contaminated – despite it being a human rights violation and a war crime. The imperialist media will never document reality, because reality would condemn the West for its barbarism.
Furthermore, if the West cannot win a war of information, then it seeks to outright ban inconvenient facts altogether. Take for example the shutdown of Press TV in the United States – or the deplatforming of Russia Today or Sputnik after the February 2022 Russian military operation in Ukraine.
Lebanon’s Al-Maydeen was also briefly banned on Meta platforms for its coverage of Al Aqsa Storm. According to the network, no reason was provided for it, nor was any prior notice given.
The fact of the matter is the imperialist media does not shy away from playing dirty to ensure only its pro-imperialist outlets and narratives dominate public perception.
It understands it is in a losing battle against the truth and is aggressively conducting widespread disinformation and information stifling in a final bid to control its narratives.
An age-old saying is that in war, the first casualty is truth. The imperialist West has been imposing war on the entire globe for over a century. The truth has been “killed” in this sense many times – leading to racism, Islamophobia, and more rot within society – but it can also be salvaged.
As growing contradictions sharpen within our world, the imperialist West will intensify its disinformation campaigns. Based on what we already know about its unethical conduct, the world cannot look to the West for the truth.
The West’s truth is a false reality based on the vision created by the US ruling class and its partners, who are committed to defiling the world for their own greed.
If the West fears the narrative of the Palestinians so much then it must know that the truth is with Palestine – and that Palestine is the truth.
Israel-Hamas “war” – another excuse to shut down free speech
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | October 11, 2023
As a brand new war-narrative unfolds, there’s already efforts underway to parlay the conflict into tighter controls on free speech and freedom of expression, both in person and on the internet.
The headlines have been filled with nothing but Israel and Hamas since the “surprise attack” on Saturday, with the predictable back and forth of historical grievances and accusations of racism, punctuated by unsubstantiated claims of atrocities.
“Atrocity Propaganda” is nothing new. It is the opening salvo of every war as state combatants try to win the public to their side.
For example, the totally unsubstantiated claim that Hamas “threw forty Jewish babies out of their cribs and beheaded them”, which was doing the rounds yesterday. As far as atrocity propaganda goes the claim is startling in its unoriginality (Nayirah anyone?)
There’s a lot of that right now, lurid claims of graphic and pointless violence directed against the innocent, most of which survives just long enough to cause some outrage before being “debunked” or walked-back.
Part of that is the general “fog of war”, heightened by the advent of social media. When a lot of people can talk a lot more is said (good and bad).
But there’s another interpretation: That fake war stories are being intentionally seeded onto social media and then “debunked” to discredit platforms and appear to justify digital censorship.
Within the past twenty-four hours Reuters, NBC, YahooNews, The Guardian and the AP have run stories criticising the proliferation of “fake war news” on social media. Al Jazeera joined in too.
Almost all of those accusations have been directed solely at Twitter/X – increasingly the media’s anti-free speech strawman.
Governments have not been quiet on the issue either, with the European Union reportedly “warning” Elon Musk there would be “penalties” for the spread of war-related “misinformation” on his platform.
It’s not just “misinformation” either, but also “hate”. In an unusually subtle headline, NBCNews warns of the “increasingly fraught nature of online speech”. USA Today is more on the nose, claiming “online hate” is “surging”.
Oh, and there are the “unregulated” sites to worry about, where terrorists allegedly upload violent videos, at least so the New York Times says:
“Hamas Seeds Violent Videos on Sites With Little Moderation”
It’s not hard to see where this leads.
And while “misinformation” is used to justify social media censorship, “safety” is used to justify shutting down freedom of assembly.
In the UK and US pro-Palestinian rallies were met with calls for the police to get involved, citing laws that outlaw the public support of “listed terrorist organizations”.
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has told the police that waving a Palestinian flag could be considered a crime. Metropolitan police are engaging in “reassurance patrols”.
In France the police are already more directly involved, shutting down a pro-Palestine demonstration.
… and people applauded.
Many of them the same voices who railed against tyranny in defending the Canadian truckers or anti-lockdown protests. It is disheartening to see.
In short, the “war” is four days old and is already being used to suppress dissent on the streets and argue against free-speech on the internet.
However the war narrative evolves over there, over here it’s just more of the same.
Fact Check: Hamas ‘Beheading Babies’ Story Based on Weak Evidence
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 11.10.2023
Amid the fresh escalation of violence in the Middle East, a story by Israeli i24NEWS reporter Nicole Zedeck from Kfar Aza, in which she reported that Israeli soldiers claimed they had found babies with heads severed by Hamas militants, was seized upon by the Western mainstream press, despite a lack of official confirmation.
The Western mainstream press has yet again dipped into its playbook of hawking unproven claims and peddling what are often false narratives. Gut-wrenching headlines like “Hamas cut the throats of babies,” “An act of sheer evil,” and “Massacre of innocents” were emblazoned across a plethora of media outlets after an Israeli reporter claimed that bodies of babies, including some with their heads cut off, had been stumbled upon by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in the Israeli kibbutz of Kfar Aza.
Amid the latest spiral of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, an i24NEWS reporter was among the journalists invited to survey the aftermath of the infiltration of southern Israel by Hamas fighters. As IDF soldiers went from house to house removing the bodies of victims in the kibbutz near the Gaza border, the reporter, Nicole Zedeck, said:
“Talking to some of the soldiers here, they say what they witnessed as they’ve been walking through these communities is bodies of babies with their heads cut off and families gunned down in their beds… We can see some of these soldiers right now, comforting each other.”
Sputnik fact-checked the media hype around the swirling Hamas “beheadings” story, and found it to be based on weak evidence.
The unverified news of Hamas fighters reportedly beheading 40 Israeli babies swiftly took off on social media platforms, shared and retweeted despite not being verified by any news outlet.
The Israeli military does not have any data confirming the alleged massacre of women, elderly people, and children in Kfar Aza, an army representative told Sputnik.
The Israel Defense Forces, alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym Tzahal, is not in possession of any information regarding allegations that “Hamas beheaded babies,” Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency reported, after requesting a comment from the IDF. “We have seen the news, but we do not have any details or confirmation about that,” an IDF spokesperson was cited as saying.
Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip launched an offensive against Israel dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, launching thousands of missiles while other groups breached the border and advanced into Israeli territory. The Israel Defense Forces retaliated with airstrikes against the Gaza Strip. The attack prompted Israel to declare a state of war, and put the Gaza Strip under full blockade, cutting off food, gas, and electricity supplies. Israeli and Palestinian authorities have reported that hundreds of people have died and thousands have been injured in the flare-up.
The Palestinian movement Hamas has also vehemently dismissed reports that Gazan fighters allegedly attacked civilians and killed children during the operation near the Gaza Strip.
“The [Hamas] movement categorically rejects the false accusations fabricated by certain Western media outlets, most recently of the alleged killings of children, their beheadings and attacks on civilians,” it stated on its Telegram account. Hamas added that such false claims are “aimed at covering up war crimes and [Israel’s] genocide against the Palestinian people.”
The movement noted that it exclusively targets “[Israel’s] military machine and the security system built [by the Israeli authorities],” calling on Western media to “be objective and professional in reporting the latest events around the Gaza Strip.”
Incidentally, the correspondent who eagerly spread the “Hamas beheaded 40 children” news, without any images or official statements to buttress them, later retracted her claim, and was quoted in media reports as saying:
“I just wanted to clarify that I did not tweet 40 babies had been beheaded. I tweeted that foreign media had been told women and children had been decapitated but we had not been shown bodies – which was my response to reports which had gone viral about the 40 babies. I realized the way my tweet was written was too short to explain the full context, so deleted it. My headline of my story references that toddlers were killed.”
However, the reporter’s words fell on deaf ears, as the media frenzy had already caught fire.
There is no shortage of similar instances when the mainstream press has devoured deliberate distortions of facts to fit the Western narrative.
Bucha Frame-Up
Amid Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, in early April, 2022, the Kiev regime’s media and social networks published graphic photos and videos of allegedly dead bodies strewn in the streets of Bucha. Russian troops had withdrawn from the Ukrainian town on March 30 as Ukrainian forces shelled it with artillery, tanks, and multiple launch rocket systems. After Ukrainian forces, including the neo-Nazi Azov regiment, entered the city, they did not report any casualties among the locals. On April 2, Ukraine’s National Police, which also entered the town, filmed a video showing the city’s streets and damaged buildings. Shortly after, Kiev claimed that Bucha was full of corpses, accusing Russia of war crimes and providing a video showing numerous alleged bodies lying in the streets – while the previous clip had failed to show any.
Ukrainian authorities blamed the alleged killings on Russia, despite many corpses in the videos wearing white armbands, which may have been considered Russian insignia by Ukrainian troops. Moscow denounced the allegations, with the Russian Ministry of Defense saying that this was yet another provocation, and stressing that not a single Bucha resident had been harmed by the Russian military while the city was under its control. It underscored that Ukrainian forces shelled the city after Russian troops had already withdrawn from the area. It should be noted that before reports of the mass killings surfaced, the Ukrainian police announced an operation in the settlement to “clear the area of saboteurs and accomplices of Russian troops,” which also raises questions about possible preparations for a false flag operation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called on the international community to conduct an impartial investigation into the provocation in Bucha. While Moscow demanded that international leaders should not rush to make sweeping accusations, but listen to Russia’s arguments, the Western mainstream media wasted no time in jumping on the graphic footage and peddling the uncorroborated “Bucha massacre” story, while branding Russia as the culprit.
Alleged Chemical Attack in Douma, Syria
On April 7, 2018, a number of NGOs, including the White Helmets, alleged that chemical weapons were used in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, by the Syrian government. Chlorine bombs were allegedly dropped on the city, killing dozens and poisoning many locals, who were rushed to hospitals. Russia dismissed the report as fake news, with its Defense Ministry pointing out that the White Helmets were notorious for spreading falsehoods. On April 9, 2018, Russian military chemists visited the site of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, including the health facility shown in the White Helmets’ footage, but found neither cases of exposure to chemical weapons nor traces of toxic agents. Yet the Donald Trump administration used the frame-up to justify massive US and allied strikes on Syrian government targets.
Both Moscow and Damascus lambasted the US attacks, citing the fact that Syria had joined the OPCW agreement in 2013 and destroyed its chemical stockpiles by 2014.
However, the US narrative was supported by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its 2019 report. Soon after, both a WikiLeaks release and whistleblower accounts revealed that the organization had suppressed evidence confirming that the Douma incident was a staged provocation.
Kuwaiti Incubator Hoax
The so-called “Kuwaiti incubator hoax” in 1990 was based on unverified reports and a testimony given to the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus by a 15-year-old girl named Nayirah. She claimed that during the August 1990 invasion, Iraqi soldiers took Kuwaiti babies out of hospital incubators and left them to die. The horrendous story was resorted to by then-US President George H.W. Bush as a rationale behind supporting Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. However, when the war was over, it turned out that the story lacked any evidence.
Unfounded US accusations against Iran could escalate war in the Middle East
By Drago Bosnic | October 11, 2023
As we all know, Iran and Israel are no friends, to say the least. Both countries are regional superpowers and their relationship is what will define the future of the Middle East and possibly beyond. There are numerous proxies that both sides are using against each other and this is evident all across the troubled region. However, while some global powers are trying to ensure lasting peace between them, others keep pushing Iran and Israel into a direct confrontation. Namely, when Hamas launched its offensive against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), some sources were quick to blame Iran, claiming that it was directly behind the attacks. For instance, the BBC was the first to claim that Tehran was the main culprit, only to then edit the story and remove crucial parts of the accusation. Before this happened, the Wall Street Journal quoted the initial BBC report and then the unfounded claims kept spreading in the mainstream propaganda machine.
However, this doesn’t stop there, as the BBC then requoted the WSJ as a source, effectively quoting itself. Endless self-quoting is a common practice in the mainstream propaganda machine. One outlet usually publishes an unfounded claim that then gets republished by others until the targeted narrative becomes an axiom of sorts. The political West often uses these fabricated claims for geopolitical purposes, such as imposing sanctions, freezing financial assets and even launching wars of aggression around the world. And while it’s likely true that Iran has been supporting various groups that are hostile to Israel (and vice versa), there’s no evidence that it ordered Hamas to attack. Even high-ranking Israeli officials and IDF officers stated the same. And yet, the claims are still there and many in the US Congress are happy to use them as an excuse to refocus Washington DC’s attention from Russia and the Kiev regime to Iran and Israel.
Namely, members of the US Congress have been investing in war stocks. If we take into account that American policymakers are pouring their wealth into the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), what else can we expect but war? All this is being done in a very calculated manner. They tried against Russia, but realized that Moscow is just too tough of an opponent capable of taking on not just the United States, but the entire political West and winning. What’s more, according to high-ranking American generals, Russian strategic capabilities have not only been untouched, but have actually been expanded, meaning that Moscow can easily obliterate the United States and NATO at a moment’s notice. This is why Washington DC decided to choose what it sees as a more manageable target – Iran. With Russia busy in Ukraine and China concerned with Taiwan, Tehran is seemingly alone and unable to muster any support from other global powers.
However, Iran is anything but powerless. It possesses one of the world’s largest stockpiles of ballistic missiles, most of which are targeted at Israel. And while the latter has a sizable nuclear arsenal that includes at least 80-90 warheads (although some sources claim that the number is much higher and close to around 400), Iranian ballistic missiles could devastate Israeli cities, even without the use of various chemical or “dirty bomb” warheads. Israel itself has the nuclear-capable “Jericho” series of missiles, with “Jericho II” being a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), while “Jericho III” effectively serves as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). As basic physics suggests, the missile’s range is inversely proportional to the mass of the warhead, but even with the increase in the weight of the payload (1000 kg or more), the range of “Jericho III” drops to 5000 km, which is still more than enough to target any part of Iran.
The Israeli missile’s payload could be a single 450 kt (kiloton) nuclear warhead (weighing approximately 750 kg) or up to three lower-yield MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) warheads. Both options are a dreadful prospect for Iran, as these weapons could kill millions, if not tens of millions. However, as previously mentioned, Tehran is not without ways to retaliate, as its massive stockpile of MRBMs is more than enough to kill millions in Israel either way. The reason why Iran doesn’t really need nuclear weapons for such a scenario is Israel’s small territory. This is further exacerbated by the fact that most Israelis live in coastal areas, further reducing the already small territory Iran would need to target. Thus, anyone remotely sensible would want to do anything to prevent an escalation of the conflict that could potentially kill tens of millions of Israeli and Iranian civilians. However, there’s sensible and then there’s the US.
Unfortunately, we can’t have both. Washington DC warhawks are determined to push America into yet another war and the Middle East nearly always seems to be their unrelenting obsession. As per usual, uber-hawk senator Lindsey Graham, infamous for his threats to Russia and President Vladimir Putin himself, was the first in line to call for war. He didn’t even try sugarcoating anything and immediately called for the US to target Iranian oil refineries and related infrastructure, all in order to “destroy the lifeblood of the Iranian economy”. He also stated that “it is long past time for the Iranian terrorist state to pay a price for all the upheaval and destruction being sown throughout the region and world”. If we didn’t know the context, we’d probably think he’s talking about the US. Others, such as the former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, also called for an escalation. In the meantime, “evil dictatorships” such as Russia and China keep calling for peace.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Cheap Hamas drones made Israel’s border wall ‘useless’ – NYT
An Israeli watchtower with a remotely-controlled machine gun at the border with Gaza © Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images
RT | October 11, 2023
Deceiving Israel about its intentions and finding a key vulnerability in the surveillance infrastructure on the Gaza border were some of the crucial elements of the plan which allowed Hamas to inflict the worst breach of the country’s security in five decades, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The newspaper spoke to senior Israeli security officials about the preliminary conclusions that their agencies made about last Saturday’s incursion of Hamas fighters into southern Israel. The Palestinian militants raided more than 20 towns and military bases, killing hundreds of troops and civilians and capturing dozens of hostages.
Prior to the attack, Israel had considered Hamas successfully deterred since clashes in May 2021. Intercepted calls between militants appeared to confirm the assessment that the organization was not an imminent threat, sources said. An analysis is underway on whether those conversations were staged.
Israel was over-reliant on the sophisticated wall it built along the Gaza border, which has multiple types of sensors and remotely operated machine guns. Officials believed it to be virtually impenetrable and kept a relatively small military force nearby, prioritizing other areas for deployment, the report said.
Hamas took out at least four communication towers using drone-dropped munitions in the early phase of its attack, rendering the system “useless,” NYT said. The Israelis could not see the consequent breach of the physical barrier, which turned out to be an easier task than they expected it would be. Hamas used explosives and bulldozers to create nearly 30 gaps for some 1,500 fighters to pour through.
An operational lapse by Israel resulted in the clustering of its senior commanders in the area at a single base, which was overrun in a lightning offensive by the militants. With the leadership mostly killed or taken hostage, Israeli response to the emergency was disorganized and slow, sources said.
People higher up in the command chain did not initially realize the scale of the incursion amid the chaos. It took Israeli warplanes hours to provide air support to responding forces, despite their being based just minutes’ flying time from the area.
A thorough investigation of the Israeli failures is pending, as its forces are currently focused on retaliatory military action in Gaza. The newspaper suggested that the Hamas raid had shattered the nation’s sense of safety and undermined its international reputation as a reliable security partner.
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has altered the relationship between Palestine and Israel
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 10, 2023
Israel will suffer much more damage from this war than it might expect
By Abbas Juma | RT | October 10, 2023
On October 7 the world was shocked by another flare-up of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and, this time, a very serious one. Not only did Hamas fire rockets at Israel, but it also penetrated Israeli territory. The operation, called Al-Aqsa Flood, has been unprecedented in terms of audacity and planning. Over a thousand Israelis have been killed, it’s estimated, and more than 3,500 wounded, territories were captured, military personnel and civilians were taken hostage. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the start of a full-scale war, promising to leave the Gaza Strip in ruins.
The current events were a result of the biggest failure of Israel’s state security system in recent history. They have severely shaken the belief in the “omnipresence” of the Mossad (Israel’s intelligence service) and the invincibility of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). For many hours, the Israeli army was utterly helpless as Palestinian armed groups attacked the country. Israeli intelligence also failed to prevent the catastrophe in any way. Meanwhile, even the day chosen by Hamas for the start of the operation was quite symbolic – the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Presently, the Israeli authorities have only one way out– to wash away their dishonor with the blood of the enemy. This could be done by pulling ground troops into Gaza and dealing a destructive blow to Hamas. Things, however, are further complicated by the fact that Hamas is not alone. It is backed by Iran and the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah. Earlier, Hezbollah promised to open a second front, and today it openly joined the armed conflict on the side of the Palestinians. So far, it has taken action only from the border area. The sides are exchanging strikes, Hezbollah already has deaths, for which the leadership of the movement promised to take revenge.
Experts note that Hezbollah possesses advanced weapons, considerable combat experience, and has the full support of Tehran.
No need to underestimate the opponent
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that Hezbollah has become more dangerous than ever in recent years. With major victories on the battlefield in Syria, huge weapons arsenals in Lebanon, and powerful allies throughout the region, Hezbollah is at the height of its military and political power, and is at its strongest since its founding in 1985.
It is not publicly known exactly what type of weapons Hezbollah possesses and how many weapons it has, or how large the organization’s combat units are (Hezbollah is not just a paramilitary formation, but a legitimate political party in Lebanon). However, some information is available. The publicly available data and observations, as well as information from people tied to the organization, allow us to draw certain conclusions.
The potential to surprise
Theoretically, everything that the Iranian military-industrial complex has to offer can be transferred to Hezbollah fighters. This includes dozens of types of missiles and drones. Moreover, Tehran aids Hezbollah with hundreds of millions of dollars annually. This means that Hezbollah can offer serious resistance to Israel not only on land, but also at sea and in the air. There is evidence that in recent years Hezbollah has acquired advanced naval military equipment, including Yakhont and C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as UAV submarines.
It also possesses ballistic missiles. Experts say that the range of Iranian missiles is 500-to-700 kilometers, which allows them to hit any point on the map in Israel.
As for the number of fighters, two years ago Hezbollah’s Secretary General claimed that the organization has about 100,000 trained fighters. Hassan Nasrallah stressed that this is only the number of professional soldiers. The organization may also enlist the support of numerous allied groups and followers from around the world.
A focus on missiles and more
Hezbollah’s arsenal of missile weapons has steadily grown since 2006 (the Second Lebanon War). According to media reports, it currently has about 200,000 missiles, including high-precision, intelligent missile systems, as well as drones and air defense systems.
Russia’s Kornet anti-tank missile system was used during battles in southern Lebanon in 2006, and was able to hit Israel’s Merkava tanks. As for the high-precision missiles that Netanyahu mentioned at the UN in 2017 and 2018, these are Zelzal artillery rockets (160-km range) which Iran actively used in the war with Iraq (1980-1988), Zelzal-2 artillery rockets (210-km range), and the Fateh-110 surface-to-surface ballistic missile. The latter was used during Operation Martyr Soleimani, launched by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) against the US military in Iraq in response to the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force, General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in Baghdad.
It is also known that the Iranians handed over countless artillery pieces and shells to their Lebanese colleagues. Moreover, Hezbollah possesses many heavy armored vehicles. Some of them we’ve seen during the Syrian campaign – for example, T-55, T-72, and T-80 tanks. The organization also has various types of infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, the 2S1 Carnation self-propelled howitzer, the Shilka anti-aircraft self-propelled weapon system, and more.
Hezbollah is capable of firing 3,000 rockets per day across Israeli territory, and can reach targets at any distance. Experts also claim that, as of 2021, the Lebanese party had about 2,000 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Considering Iran’s highly successful development of combat drones, there is little doubt that this is indeed true.
Conclusions
Israel’s situation is further complicated by the existence of an extensive network of underground tunnels used by Hezbollah fighters for moving around, transporting military equipment, and storing weapons. The IDF regularly destroys tunnels stretching from southern Lebanon to northern Israel, but even the Israeli military recognizes that the number of secret underground passages is overwhelming, and it is impossible to destroy all of them.
Gadi Eizenkot, the 21st Chief of General Staff of the IDF, often noted that these tunnels allow Hezbollah to carry out unexpected strikes. However, the organization continues developing in further ways; it trains hackers and pays increasing attention to information technologies. Five years ago, I was able to interview Hezbollah’s media officer Muhammad Afif. This is what he told me at the time:
“We confront our enemies at all possible levels – including through intelligence services, special forces, ideology, and of course, the Internet. We do not intend to lag behind our opponents in anything. Hezbollah closely watches Israel’s every move. Any new technology that they have, we have too. Hezbollah has a unit that specializes in electronic warfare and hackers. We pay a lot of attention to advertising, PR, and social networks. Of course, we cannot say that we are unrivaled in this, but it is a promising direction. Especially among young people who want to work online and know how to do it. For our part, we provide them with everything they need for training and work. Not only Lebanese people are involved – many young people from abroad support Hezbollah.”
Considering all of the above, we may draw several important conclusions. If Israel wins a full-scale war with Hezbollah, it will surely be a Pyrrhic victory. Hezbollah will also suffer irreparable damage as a result of a direct clash with Israel. However, there is a fundamental difference in the principles of the two sides. Hezbollah is an organization that was created (and exists) to fight and die, once it has fulfilled its mission of mortally wounding the enemy. The question is, would Israel be ready to do the same?
Abbas Juma is an international journalist, political commenter, Middle East and Africa specialist.
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From the Archives
Neocons confess: “We did 9/11-anthrax”
By Kevin Barrett | Press TV | September 6, 2014
As the 13th anniversary of the crimes of September, 2001 approaches, the neoconservatives are shrieking from the rooftops – and effectively confessing that they were the real perpetrators of the 9/11-Anthrax false flag operation. (The neocons, you may recall, openly called for a “new Pearl Harbor” in September, 2000 – and got one exactly one year later.)
Every year at this time, the neocons orchestrate and hype a series of public relations stunts designed to magnify fears of “radical Islam” and reinforce their crumbling 9/11-Anthrax cover story. But this year’s propaganda campaign is so extreme that it represents a tacit confession: The neocons know that the truth about the 9/11-Anthrax operation is slowly closing in on them; so they are over-reacting by desperately trying to stoke the dying embers of the so-called War on Terror, in order to maintain the myth that Muslims (rather than neoconservative Zionists) attacked America in the autumn of 2001.
When a hysterical person exhibits guilty demeanor by trying too hard to blame a crime on someone else, that person is almost certainly the real perpetrator. As the neocons try much too hard to blame Islam for 9/11 and “terrorism” in general, their hysteria inadvertently reveals their own culpability. Like Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth, the neoconservative movement has blood on its hands and “doth protest too much.” … continue
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