Gaza-Israel Conflict | 2023-2024

[The SC]

Israeli PM says he opposes 2-state solution in any post-war scenario | Power & Politics​

CBC/Radio-Canada

 

[The SC]

Why does the US act as Israel’s lawyer? | The Bottom Line​

President Joe Biden’s failure to demonstrate the same regard and sympathy for Palestinian suffering as he has shown Israel has turned the United States into “Israel’s lawyer,” says

Former US State Department official Aaron David Miller.Miller tells host Steve Clemons that Israel has lost the Western perception of being David in the story of “David v Goliath,” and its image will be further damaged the more its people veer to the right.US officials “don't have any better answers right now than the Israelis do”, Miller says, adding that there will be no “open breach” in relations with the Netanyahu government.

 

[BHAN85]

Why does the US act as Israel’s lawyer? | The Bottom Line​

President Joe Biden’s failure to demonstrate the same regard and sympathy for Palestinian suffering as he has shown Israel has turned the United States into “Israel’s lawyer,” says

Former US State Department official Aaron David Miller.Miller tells host Steve Clemons that Israel has lost the Western perception of being David in the story of “David v Goliath,” and its image will be further damaged the more its people veer to the right.US officials “don't have any better answers right now than the Israelis do”, Miller says, adding that there will be no “open breach” in relations with the Netanyahu government.

It's not so lawyer.

USA supports Israel, but also they want a constant state of war in Israel, it's not true friendship.

And democrats are the most evil in his relation with Israel, always talking about the "two states" solution bullsht.

USA wants war in Middle East, and Israel is just a tool to achieve it.

USA is the biggest enemy of Eurasia, and Israel is the useful idiot, the Gavrilo Princip of WWIII.

 

[Khansaheeb]

Seems like it's heading for total war, all gloves off, no rules, pure genocide against all that don't bow to the empire (China and Russia are nowhere to be seen), more pawns on the board means the game is going to get serious:-

New Jersey soldiers prepare for deployment to Syria and Iraq

Hundreds of New Jersey Army National Guard soldiers are being deployed to fight ISIS as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

www.cbsnews.com

LOCAL NEWS

New Jersey soldiers prepare for deployment to Syria and Iraq​

By Madeleine Wright
January 14, 2024 / 7:13 PM EST / CBS Philadelphia

TRENTON, N.J. (CBS) – Soldiers from New Jersey are joining the fight against an Islamic militant group in the Middle East. This will be the largest deployment of New Jersey Army National Guard soldiers since 2008.

Lt. Col. Omar Minott is among 1,500 New Jersey Army National Guard soldiers deploying to Iraq and Syria. This is his fifth deployment to the Middle East, he said.

His deployment is part of Operation Inherent Resolve, a military campaign to defeat ISIS.

"We have the people we need, we have the training that we need, we have the equipment that we need to fight and win," Minott said.

Ahead of the deployment, military families watched as New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and other officials honored the soldiers from the 44th Infantry Brigade Combat Team at a special ceremony Sunday in Trenton.





Top Videos00:4301:30How virtual reality is helping patients inphysical therapy
"By doing your part to support Operation Inherent Resolve, you are protecting peace and prosperity not only for our state, not only for our country but for the entire free world," Murphy said.

Minott said he's ready for the dangers ahead, but being away from his family for 10 months won't be easy.

"With a two-parent household, having me leave is a challenge with our four kids," Minott said. "But my wife is, she's pretty strong."

The wife of another soldier said it will be tough to have her husband leave, but she's relying on friends and family for support.


"Daddy's being deployed to Iraq," Danielle Pruser, who has an 11-month-old daughter, said. "This is his second deployment, so we'll be excited when he comes back."

The soldiers will first head to Fort Bliss, Texas, for training before going to the Middle East. Family members said they're praying for their loved ones' safe return.

In the meantime, families plan to keep in touch by writing letters and talking on Skype.

"It's a little different now than when I first came in, when you had to stand in line for the one phone and wait to get connected," Minott said.

READ MORE: "It's taken so long to be a first": Woman first Asian American to lead NJ National Guard

 

[Khansaheeb]

The shocking inhumanity of Israel’s crimes in Gaza

Survivors of Israel’s invasion in northern Gaza share horrifying accounts of kidnapping, torture, and civilians being used as human shields. The imprisonment of Haytham al-Hilou and the repeated ar…

informationclearinghouse.blog

The shocking inhumanity of Israel’s crimes in Gaza​

Survivors of Israel’s ground invasion in northern Gaza tell chilling stories of kidnappings, torture, and the rampant use of civilians as bait and human shields. The world still has no idea how inhumane Israel’s genocidal war really has been.
By Tareq S. Hajjaj

Dozens of patients stand in line for hours outside the pharmacy booth in the Kuwaiti Hospital compound. They all start out by asking the pharmacist the same question: is my medication available? The answer for most is no.
Amid the long lines of the elderly, the ill, and mothers carrying their children, a man appearing to be middle-aged leaning on a young boy arrives, speaking in a loud voice and asking to be allowed to jump the line — he’s just been released from prison, and can barely stand.
“I spent sixty days of constant beating and humiliated,” he says. “They just released me, and I need to just get my medicine. Please let me take it without having to wait any longer.”
Everyone lets him through, allowing him to collect his medications from the booth and leave.
I stand beside him in the hospital courtyard and ask him how he came to be arrested by the Israeli army — and how he was eventually released.

Haytham al-Hilou in the Kuwaiti Hospital courtyard in Rafah, January 2024. (Photo: Tareq Hajjaj/Mondoweiss)
Haytham al-Hilou, 56, was displaced from Beit Hanoun to southern Gaza on October 27 of last year. He says that on his journey south, he was made to pass through a mechanized checkpoint the Israeli army had set up at the Netzarim junction on Salah al-Din Street. When he passed through the metal doors, and the Israeli cameras picked up his image, Israeli soldiers called out his name through a microphone, instructing him to step aside. Al-Hilou was sent to an Israeli detention center, where he would endure sixty days of torture and humiliation interspersed with interrogations for any piece of information that might be of use to the army in identifying and reaching specific targets.
“When I reached the detention point, the soldiers asked me to take off all my clothes,” he says. “They told us to go wait in a ditch dug by the army a distance away from the checkpoint.”
When he slid down into the ditch, it was already occupied by dozens of Palestinians who had also been detained, all of them naked and blindfolded. Not much time had passed before soldiers arrived and blindfolded him as well.
Haytham al-Hilou was fleeing with his wife and five children. No one else was with them who could look after them when he was arrested. Al-Hilou says his family suffered immensely during his imprisonment and struggled to find a shelter to take them in.
“When I was released, I found my family homeless and in the streets,” he continues. “No shelter, no food, no drink. Every drop of water and piece of bread they managed to find was after a long period of suffering.”
He says it was a miracle that he found his family alive at all without a head of household to take care of them, especially since all his children were very young, including his three daughters and two young boys.
When he was first arrested, he didn’t know where he was being taken, but after a long journey, he found himself in Ofer Prison, outside of Ramallah in the West Bank.
At Ofer, he was interrogated and subjected to physical and psychological torture. Israeli intelligence officers denied him food for long periods, holding interrogation sessions for hours on end. They would ask him about the hiding places of Hamas leaders like Yahya Sinwar and asked whether there were openings to tunnels inside his home. He kept repeating the same answer.
I am a normal civilian, I am uninvolved in any military activity.
The interrogators would simply beat him severely in response. As an older man with graying hair, a short frame, and a fragile build, he was unable to endure the torture techniques of the Shin Bet.
And the questions would continue. Where are the Hamas leaders? Where are they hiding?
His answers turned into shouts at one point. I don’t know! I don’t know! I am not a Hamas member! I have nothing to do with resistance. I have nothing to do with military activity. I don’t know where the Hamas leaders are, I don’t know anything about them. Civilians don’t know these things, only leaders do. Normal people don’t know who they are. They’re always in hiding.
Despite all this, al-Hilou is grateful that he was eventually released and allowed to return home and that he is now in his family’s arms.
He says that prison during the war is different than in any other period. Prisoners from Gaza are worried about their families, wondering whether they’ve been able to find shelter or not, whether they’ve been able to secure food, whether they are even dead or alive.
Haytham al-Hilou maintains that there was no reason for his arrest, and no evidence pointed to his involvement in any resistance or military activity. He does mention that when he was between the ages of 17 and 20, he engaged in activities that were not military in any way but which were supportive of the resistance.
“Maybe Israel wanted to punish me for my youth, years that are behind me and well in the past,” he speculated.
In those youthful years, he and his friends used to participate in activities that showed support for the resistance. And who in all of Palestine doesn’t support resistance against the occupation?

Arrested twice in the same day​

There are endless stories of arbitrary incarcerations that have taken place at the numerous Israeli military checkpoints throughout the Gaza Strip, where it maintains control. Some people were arrested once, twice, and even three times during their stay in Gaza City, having refused to leave as part of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza. Eyad Eleywa is one of the residents of Gaza City who decided to remain and has remained there to this day, while several of his children chose to flee south. They are now in Rafah.
Eleywa remains in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood along with his wife and three of his children, his daughter-in-law, and a number of his other relatives who had fled from the areas north of Gaza City to the city itself. His son Muhammad lives in a tent in the Sultan’s neighborhood of Rafah. I get to see him every now and again, and each time, he tells me about the most recent time his father has been arrested in northern Gaza.
His father has already been arrested three times, and two of those arrests happened on the same day. Muhammad says that at the beginning of the ground operation in Gaza City, soldiers took his father from his home in Sheikh Radwan and ordered him to take off all his clothes before blindfolding him and leaving him out in the cold while conducting field interrogations.
Where are the tunnel openings? Where are the Hamas fighters? Who do you know who owns weapons in the city? The questions weren’t asked only once, and he was detained from the early morning until the late afternoon. When the soldiers were done with him, they dropped him off in al-Tuwan, far away from his home in Sheikh Radwan. They ordered the elderly man, naked and beaten, deprived of food and water for that entire period, to walk back home.
On that same evening, as he returned home on foot, he was arrested a second time at another checkpoint in the area separating al-Tuwan from the al-Nasr neighborhood. He spent the entire night in Israeli custody and was released the following day.
“When they gather the detainees in one place, they line them up one by one and terrorize them,” Muhammad says, relaying his father’s account of his treatment while under arrest. “They move from one person to the next, telling each of them, ‘We’re going to send you to your God,’ and ‘We’re going to send you to heaven to marry the virgins.’”
The insults continued for some time. The soldiers want them to fear for their lives and to believe they are moments from being executed.

Horror hidden from the world​

Those who have gone through these ordeals and lived to talk about it consider themselves lucky because they were eventually released and returned to their families. Countless others who were arrested at checkpoints remain missing, with no word of where they are or whether they are alive or dead.
Every time I scroll through social media, I come across people posting about their missing family members, all of them saying that their loved ones were lost at an Israeli checkpoint. The Israeli army releases very little information about who it has arrested at these checkpoints. The arrested include doctors, journalists, patients, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and people from all walks of life. Their loved ones are constantly putting out announcements and calling on international bodies and human rights organizations to intervene and force Israel to reveal their loved ones’ whereabouts.
Eyewitnesses who were able to escape death and reach Rafah tell horrific stories of how Israeli soldiers used civilians, especially male adolescents, as human shields or worse. One eyewitness who preferred to remain anonymous relayed a harrowing story of how Israeli soldiers, upon discovering a tunnel opening in northern Gaza, strapped explosives to a young 17-year-old man’s chest, legs, and arms and forced him to go down into the tunnel, lowering him with a rope and fastening a camera to his head. They would give him orders to go left, right, or forward as they observed from a screen aboveground.
The eyewitness says that when the soldiers were fitting him with explosives, they were laughing and cracking jokes, boasting that they would “send him to his God piece by piece,” and that he would “meet the virgins in the tunnels.” The eyewitness says that this practice was common in Beit Hanoun, using thin young men capable of moving with agility in small spaces. The eyewitness said that when soldiers noticed any suspicious movements through the camera fastened to their captive, they blew up the tunnel and the young man along with it. When the tunnel was revealed to lead to a dead end or deserted, the young man would return unharmed, and the soldiers would remove the explosives from him.
While these harrowing details that continue to emerge from survivors are so horrific that they beggar belief, the reality is that the occupation has succeeded in isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the world and rendering the majority of the crimes of its troops on the ground invisible. Israel is systematically blocking foreign journalists from reaching Gaza, assassinating Palestinian journalists, and enforcing a total information blackout through the cutting off of electricity, internet, and telecommunications.
In other words, Israel’s blackout strategy has worked, even with all the gory images that still manage to make their way to your screens. The relative scale of the killing has prompted the world to recognize that a genocide is unfolding, but the horrific character of Israel’s crimes and the abject inhumanity of the army’s conduct still remain largely unknown to most of the world.
Via Mondoweiss

 

[That_Guy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1747965586645061829

FYI, she works for a left wing Turkish news outlet called "The Young Turks".

They've been pro-Palestine from the get go.

She's also Armenian, so she's not too fond of Israel anyway, considering Israel's support for Azerbaijan. She's been fiercely pro-Palestine from the beginning.

Her reaction isn't surprising.

What is surprising is Piers Morgan who's been becoming increasingly skeptical of Israel's actions in Gaza, even suggesting that they've gone too far in their response to Oct 7th. Piers represents the peak of main stream opinion, so if he's having a change of heart, then Israel's propaganda machine in the Western/European world is in real trouble.

 

[Oldenwisdom...قول بزرگ]

The cost of this war is such that it will keep exacting it's toll for generations to come...
Inaction and injustice today will become vengeance... zionist utopia will be set in barbed wires and be enforced with perpetual surveillance and automated machine guns for generations.
The whole region is being cordoned off just to make it habitable for parasitic imposters colonizing locals and fomenting a kingdom on the blood of innocents.

Inaction today will rue the region and the whole world. The blood innocent mothers, desolate grandmother's and sobbing toddlers... whose whole childhood, neighbors and neighborhood has been robbed.

Remember how for almost two hundred years the region dripped in blood of innocents and what finally Saladin had to go through to foment a united front... to finally kick the aggressor out.
Don't be deceived...

We live in times of apparent deceit... where consent is manufactured and appearances choreographed. Where masses knowingly listen to liars on the podium... where facts and figures are manipulated and end justifies means.
Where theologies are crafted, hindus peddle zionism and atheists boast Semitism.

For only a throne of skulls be left for the Tyrants!

 

[Cryptonian]

Warning: Graphic Video

Video shows aftermath of a summary execution of 15 men in a Gaza apartment | Al Jazeera Newsfeed​

Witness got no proof of his bogus claim. no pics , no recording.

 

[Shanlung]

The only good answer is what I wrote and wrote again

CHINA MUST STEP IN

China must declare to America that whatever amount of arm sales made or given to Taiwan, China will then send the monetary equivalent to Russia for use in Ukraine or Middle East.

Whatever the arms America giving to Zionist Nazis, will be matched by China sending the equivalent to Palestinians.

And whatever NATO and America giving to Ukriane, will be match by China sending arms to Russia.

America want to give till it hurts

China will ensure America will be hurt

Only in that way, China will ensure peace on Earth.

And never again will America kill 500,000 kids and say that price is worth it.

 

[Khansaheeb]

The only good answer is what I wrote and wrote again

CHINA MUST STEP IN

China must declare to America that whatever amount of arm sales made or given to Taiwan, China will then send the monetary equivalent to Russia for use in Ukraine or Middle East.

Whatever the arms America giving to Zionist Nazis, will be matched by China sending the equivalent to Palestinians.

And whatever NATO and America giving to Ukriane, will be match by China sending arms to Russia.

America want to give till it hurts

China will ensure America will be hurt

Only in that way, China will ensure peace on Earth.

And never again will America kill 500,000 kids and say that price is worth it.

Arab oil is vital for China's economy but it's letting the western countries take the initiative and it will be harder for it to gain control. China has a good moral pretext to use and involve itself with the Arabs: Palestine.

 

[Khansaheeb]

Seems like Musk's Israel bias is taking fruit:-

Live updates: Israel-Hamas war

40,988 Palestinians killed in Israel's offense on Gaza since Oct 7 UN rights chief calls on states to challenge Israel over occupation Clashes erupt in West Bank as Israeli military raids refugee camps Israeli strikes kill seven in central Syria, reports war monitor

www.thenews.com.pk

Gaza facing longest telecom blackout since Oct 7​

By: AFP​

A telecommunications blackout in the besieged Gaza Strip has entered its sixth day, the longest continuous outage since the Israel-Hamas war began, internet monitor NetBlocks said Wednesday.
"The disruption, now entering its sixth day, is the longest sustained telecoms outage on record since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war," NetBlocks said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

 

[Shanlung]

When America shows she is afraid of Houtis , and very afraid of Zionist Nazis, is there any reason China should be afraid of America?

America only show bravely in trying to round up mob justice that America coined as coalition of cowards that faded away as soon as they know their blood be spilt before that of any Muricans as we seen in the Red Sea

America does not even know what pronoun America wanna use while America championing drag queens story telling for little kids and proud of America army of kids with 2 moms or 2 dads or 2 trans

 

[StormOfTruth]

New Armed Group Kataib Al-Faruq emerges in Egyptian Sinai Desert region

https://twitter.com/x/status/1748095095042117879

 

[Beijingwalker]

Palestinian envoy to UN thanks China, ‘a true friend’, for its support​

• Riyad Mansour, at Non-Aligned Movement summit in Uganda, praises Beijing after Foreign Minister Wang Yi calls for ceasefire and an independent Palestinian state
• NAM ministers also reach consensus to support the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination in accordance with a two-state solution

Published: 2:30am, 19 Jan, 2024

The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations called China “a true friend ready to do everything they can to help the Palestinian people” on Thursday, days after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledged Beijing would provide more assistance and push for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Riyad Mansour, attending the 19th summit of the Non- Aligned Movement (NAM) in Kampala, Uganda, said that China had been “generous” with its assistance, including diplomatic support, as the Israel-Gaza war passed 100 days and killed more than 24,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities.

“We know the position of China very well. It is a principled position. We work very closely with them in the United Nations Security Council. They support every effort and every resolution that calls for immediate ceasefire and for providing humanitarian assistance,” Mansour said in an interview on the sidelines of the NAM session, where more than 60 foreign ministers also called for an immediate ceasefire.

In Cairo on Sunday, Wang said China would provide a third round of humanitarian emergency assistance to Gaza. He also condemned Israel’s attacks and called for an immediate ceasefire and the formation of an independent Palestinian state.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Cairo, Egypt. Photo: Reuters

In Tunisia the next day, Wang made a similar call, agreeing with Tunisian leaders to continue to “jointly support the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights”.

Wang said that a political settlement would have to be achieved in accordance with relevant United Nations resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative. He called for establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Wang also said that China sought the convening of an “international peace conference” that would formulate a road map for establishing a “two-state solution”.

The US and a number of Western allies including Britain have stood with Israel and continued to provide assistance after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on October 7, killing an estimated 1,200 Israelis and taking about 240 hostages. Hamas has released about 100 of them, but Israel says about 130 remain in Gaza.

“It’s high time for us to become a member state,” Mansour said on Thursday.


“When we march, after we put an end to the war, to legislate in the Security Council, China and many others will be supportive of our request for admission of the state of Palestine to membership,” he added.

“Also we will go to the General Assembly to legislate a resolution calling for the convening of an international conference on the basis of international law and relevant UN resolutions in order to make the two-states solution idea a reality,” he said.

In Kampala, the foreign ministers reached consensus to support the cause of the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination in accordance with a two-state solution.

The Gaza Strip during an Israeli bombardment on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Henry Okello Oryem, Uganda’s minister of state for foreign affairs, said that Palestine was the “hottest debate” during the meeting – especially ending the war.

The ministers expressed grave concerns over the deterioration of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, as well as the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. The ministers, meeting in advance of the Heads of State and Government summit on Friday and Saturday, called for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid.

The ministers pledged to “support Palestine’s efforts to realise their inalienable rights, including to self-determination and freedom” in an independent and sovereign Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the basis of the pre-1967 borders. They also expressed support for Palestine’s admission as a UN member state.

In Kampala, Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister, said that the “two-states solution remains the most viable option we believe for peace and security for both Israel and Palestine”.

South Africa filed a case against Israel before the International Court of Justice accusing it of “genocidal acts” in its assaults on Gaza.

Additionally, a ceasefire “is part of our submissions to the International Court of Justice because we need to stop this” war in Gaza, Pandor said on the sidelines of the meeting.

Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, Cuba’s minister of foreign affairs, said that “what’s going on in the occupied Palestinian territories is an outrage to humanity and must come to an end immediately”.

Parrilla said Cuba had suggested that NAM support deploying an international protection mission, authorised by the UN General Assembly, to the Gaza Strip. It would have a mandate of guaranteeing the security and protection of the civilian population and expediting the delivery of humanitarian assistance and food.

A truck of humanitarian aid supplies for Gaza provided by China awaiting departure in Cairo, Egypt, on November 27, 2023. Photo: Xinhua

Also at the meeting, Azerbaijan passed on the chairmanship of NAM to Uganda while South Sudan was admitted as a new member of NAM – increasing the total membership to 121 with 18 observer states. China has observer status and supported Uganda in hosting the summit, donating 70 SUVs to help with the transport of delegates.

Formed in 1961 to advance the interests of developing countries during the Cold War, NAM is now positioning itself to focus more on trade and investment opportunities among member states.

Israel-Gaza war: Palestinian UN envoy thanks ‘true friend’ China for its support

Riyad Mansour, at Non-Aligned Movement summit in Uganda, praises Beijing after Foreign Minister Wang Yi calls for ceasefire and an independent Palestinian state.

www.scmp.com

 

[The SC]

Trump reveals the hidden intentions of the Israelis