Iran says it can produce nuclear weapon if faced with existential threat
Nov 2, 2024, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202411011480
ran is capable of producing nuclear weapons and an existential threat could cause a rethink of the Supreme Leader’s injunction against them, one of his top foreign policy advisors told Lebanese news outlet Al Mayadeen.
“If the Islamic Republic of Iran faces an existential threat, we would have no choice but to adjust our military doctrine,” Former foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi said in an interview with the pro-Tehran channel.
“We already have the technical capabilities to produce weapons; only a religious decree forbidding nuclear weapons prevents us from doing so,” he added, referring to a religious decree by the country’s ultimate decision maker Ali Khamenei.
Kharrazi heads the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations and has hinted before that Iran could ditch its stated opposition to acquiring nuclear weapons but was offering his first public remarks since Israeli air strikes on Iran on Oct. 26.
Members of the body he leads are by handpicked by Khamenei and its reports and advisories have often presaged major policy shifts by the ruling system.
Iran has maintained that it will not pursue nuclear arms because the 2010 fatwa banned all weapons of mass destruction including nuclear bombs. The decree could potentially be interpreted by Iranian decision-makers as an advisory opinion lacking legal status, however.
Israel launched air strikes on military targets in Iran over the weekend in response to a missile barrage Tehran fired on the Jewish state on Oct. 1.
The attack hit missile facilities and air defense capabilities, killing four Iranian soldiers and a civilian.
Kharrazi told Al Mayadaeen that Iran would seek to expand the reach of weapons. “There’s a possibility that Iran may increase its missile range,” he said.
Upping Iran’s official rhetoric, all three top leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Thursday said a damaging counterstrike to Israel by Tehran was assured.
Israel Killed Over 50 Children in Jabalia in 48 Hours: UN
Four children were wounded by an Israeli strike on a vaccination center in northern Gaza
by Dave DeCamp November 3, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/03/israel-kills-over-50-children-in-jabalia-within-48-hours-un/
Israeli strikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza, killed over 50 children in just 48 hours, the UN’s child relief agency, UNICEF, said in a statement on Saturday.
“This has already been a deadly weekend of attacks in North Gaza. In the past 48 hours alone, over 50 children have reportedly been killed in Jabalia, where strikes leveled two residential buildings sheltering hundreds of people,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza that began in early October. The campaign has involved a starvation blockade and massive strikes on civilians, and Israeli troops are preventing the approximately 50,000 Palestinians who have been forced out of Jabalia from returning.
Russell said Israeli strikes included an attack on UNICEF staff working on a polio vaccination campaign for children and an attack on a vaccination center. The World Health Organization said at least six people, including four children, were wounded in the Israeli strike on the vaccination center.
“The attacks on Jabalia, the vaccination clinic, and the UNICEF staff member are yet further examples of the grave consequences of the indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza strip,” Russell said. “Taken alongside the horrific level of child deaths in North Gaza from other attacks, these most recent events combine to write yet another dark chapter in one of the darkest periods of this terrible war.”
Israeli strikes continued to pound northern, central, and southern Gaza on Sunday. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 35 Palestinians were killed, including 16 in the north. An Israeli attack on a residential building in the southern city of Khan Younis killed seven members of the same family, including four children.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said in its death toll update on Sunday that at least 27 Palestinians were killed and 86 were injured in the previous 24-hour period. The latest violence brought the ministry’s death toll since October 2023 to 43,341 and the number of wounded to 102,105.
The Health Ministry’s numbers are considered an undercount since they don’t account for Palestinians missing and presumed dead under the rubble or indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege. A group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza have estimated the US-backed Israeli bombing campaign and siege has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, including over 60,000 who have starved to death.
The genocidal slaughter would not be possible without US military aid, as Israeli officials have acknowledged they couldn’t sustain operations in Gaza for more than a few months without US support. The Israeli news site Calcalist has estimated the US has funded about 70% of Israel’s military operations over the past year.
US Bombers Arrive in Middle East as Part of New Deployment for Israel
The US has reportedly warned Iran not to respond to Israel’s attack
by Dave DeCamp November 3, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/03/us-bombers-arrive-in-middle-east-as-part-of-new-deployment-to-protect-israel/
US B-52 bombers arrived in the Middle East on Saturday as part of a new deployment to “defend” Israel amid speculation over whether or not Iran will respond to Israel’s October 26 attack.
“B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the US Central Command area of responsibility,” US Central Command wrote on X.
The Pentagon announced it was beefing up its military presence in the region on Friday, saying Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the “deployment of additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several US Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the region.”
The Pentagon said the purpose of the deployment is the “protection of US citizens and forces in the Middle East, the defense of Israel, and de-escalation.” The US also recently deployed a THAAD missile defense system and about 100 troops to Israel.
Iranian officials have been vowing there will be a response to Israel’s attack, which killed four Iranian soldiers and one civilian. Israel launched the airstrikes on Iran in retaliation for the October 1 Iranian missile barrage that was fired into Israel in response to a string of Israeli escalations and assassinations in the region.
Axios has reported that Israeli intelligence suggests Iran is planning to launch a major attack from Iraqi territory and that it could happen before the US presidential election on November 5. However, a report published by The Wall Journal on Sunday said that Iran didn’t want to influence the US election and would likely wait until after.
The Journal report, which cited unnamed Arab and Iranian officials, said Iran has told Arab diplomats it’s planning a complex response against Israel that would involve more powerful warheads and other weapons not used in its previous attacks on Israeli territory. One source said Iran would likely target military facilities again “but much more aggressively than last time.”
Another Axios report said the US warned Iran that if it attacked, the US wouldn’t be able to restrain Israel. “We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be calibrated and targeted as the previous one,” a US official told Axios.
US nuclear weapons could be sited in RAF Lakenheath in spring, CND protest hears
“We are standing on the edge of the nuclear abyss. And our governments have the responsibility to keep us safe; and what are they doing? They are pushing us over the edge.”
US nuclear weapons could be sited at RAF Lakenheath as early as spring, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has warned.
The CND’s new general secretary Sophie Bolt told dozens of protesters outside the Suffolk airbase on Saturday: “We are very very concerned about the threat of a nuclear escalation between nuclear-armed Nato and nuclear-armed Russia.
“What’s happening here at this base is absolutely central to this growing nuclear threat in eastern Europe.
“It’s also the horrific genocidal war we are seeing in the Middle East because again it’s F35-A jets here and fighter pilots based here that are involved in that war.
“This base completely ties the UK to the complicity of genocide that is being carried out against Palestinian people.”
Green Party peer Jenny Jones said it is “obviously incredibly dangerous” to site nuclear bombs in Britain due to its size and international importance.
She added: “If Russia decide to get really heavy not just with Ukraine but other countries, then we could be a target even if they just think we have nuclear weapons here.
“Secondly, it’s really undemocratic. We need a public debate about the common sense or the lack of it in siting nuclear weapons in Britain.
“We should have a debate in Parliament about this and it should be a free vote as well so we can see exactly what all MPs say about this issue.”
Former Australian minister Melissa Parke, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, noted last month’s serious fire at BAE Systems nuclear submarine shipyard in Cumbria; Sellafield nuclear processing plant’s fines for cyber security failings; and maintenance issues on Britain’s nuclear fleet.
She said: “So fires, cyber security failings, maintenance problems on nuclear subs, I mean what could possibly go wrong?
“We are standing on the edge of the nuclear abyss. And our governments have the responsibility to keep us safe; and what are they doing? They are pushing us over the edge.”
Nuke Watch’s Peter Burt described detailed analysis of official documents by scientists, plane spotters and campaigners.
He said: “It’s very clear that we need to keep a close eye on what’s happening here.
“What there is no substitute for is eyes on the ground … in the same way we had in the 1980s we had the Cruise Watch Network, who kept tabs on what’s happening at Greenham Common.”
New Paper: Nuclear Weapons and Our Climate
Today, we are launching a new briefing paper: ‘Nuclear Weapons and Our Climate’ written by ICAN co-founder, A/Prof Tilman Ruff AO.
In the lead up to the climate COP29, this timely paper sharply lays out how the “two paramount human-made existential threats we confront—nuclear weapons and climate change—exacerbate each other and need to be addressed together—with utmost urgency,” writes A/Prof Ruff. “One harms us and our biosphere every day, the other could deplete it irrevocably and end human civilisation and many species in less than a day.”
The paper’s key findings are:
- Smoke from burning cities ignited by a nuclear war involving 2% of the global arsenal would suddenly plummet temperatures worldwide to ice age levels, decimate agriculture, disrupt ocean food chains and starve to death over two billion people.
- Militaries are large and mostly unconstrained greenhouse gas emitters. Growing conflicts and nuclear threats undermine international cooperation needed to address the climate crisis. Rising military spending and nuclear arsenals have huge opportunity costs and make conflicts more dangerous. An increased risk of war leading to nuclear escalation is the greatest danger of the climate crisis.
- Nuclear power inseparably creates the capacity to build nuclear weapons. In most nuclear-armed states, the infrastructure, personnel, expertise, industrial capacity and government investments in nuclear power are also key to their nuclear weapons programs.
- Nuclear reactors, spent fuel storage ponds and reprocessing plants are effectively pre-positioned large radiological weapons, vulnerable to direct attack or disruption of power and water for essential cooling. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has seen, for the first time, multiple nuclear power plants attacked and weaponised in war, risking a radiological disaster.
| The paper is a call to action, as “everyone everywhere, everything we treasure and our living planet is threatened by nuclear weapons, this is everyone’s business.” Please share the report with your friends and networks and discuss how you can help prevent climate disruption and nuclear war in your work and daily lives. |
F-35 components sent to Israel from Royal Air Force base
Parts for Israel’s most advanced fighter jet have been secretly shipped from a British military base during the assault on Gaza.
Declassified UK JOHN McEVOY, 31 October 2024
- The shipments have continued under Keir Starmer’s Labour government
Reported in partnership with Irish news site The Ditch
F-35 fighter jet parts have been secretly transported to Israel from a British air force base in Norfolk, it can be revealed.
At least seven arms shipments have been sent from RAF Marham to Israel’s F-35 airbase at Nevatim since the Gaza bombing began.
Two of the deliveries took place this summer shortly after Keir Starmer became UK prime minister.
The information is contained within cargo documents reviewed by The Ditch and Declassified.
The documents show that the UK government has not only been approving F-35 export licences to Israel, but actively facilitating their transportation through British military sites.
F-35 supplies have become particularly controversial after it emerged that Israel used one of the planes to bomb a designated safe zone in Gaza, Al-Mawasi, killing 90 people.
Campaign Against Arms Trade’s Sam Perlo-Freeman told Declassified: “The F-35 plays a major part in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and brutal bombardment and invasion of Lebanon”.
He added that “the UK is not only licensing the supply of spare parts, but actively using UK military assets to facilitate their delivery. This makes UK ministers and potentially even military personnel complicit in war crimes”.
The International Criminal Court is currently considering arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant. Human Rights Watch has warned that countries supplying Israel with arms could be complicit.
F-35 shipments
The seven shipments of F-35 parts from RAF Marham took place on 11 November 2023, 13 January, 21 January, 7 February, 28 April, 28 July, and 6 August 2024.
In six of those cases, the registered sender was the Lockheed Martin UK Integrated Systems office which is based in Havant, a town near Portsmouth.
Lockheed Martin is a major US arms corporation and the lead player in the international consortium that produces the F-35 fighter jets.
The Havant site is Lockheed Martin’s main headquarters in Britain, employing over 500 staff and working on the F-35 programme.
The components were transferred from RAF Marham to Heathrow Airport, and then transported to Tel Aviv on cargo flights operated by Israeli airline El Al……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Munitions for Israel
Labour suspended some arms export licences to Israel last month but will continue to allow shipments of F-35 components to Israel through “global hubs”.
The UK Ministry of Defence did not dispute that F-35 parts had been supplied directly to Israel from RAF Marham on the dates found by The Ditch and Declassified………………………………………………………………..more https://www.declassifieduk.org/f-35-components-sent-to-israel-from-royal-air-force-base/?utm_source=drip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ICYMI+-+Weekly+Roundup
South has raised risk of nuclear war, North Korea says
Canberra Times, By Josh Smith, 3 Nov 24
A white paper released by North Korean state media has accused South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol of exposing his country to the danger of nuclear war through his policies toward the North.
The document, compiled by North Korea’s Institute of Enemy State Studies and released on Sunday by state news agency KCNA, criticised Yoon’s “reckless remarks” about war, abandoning elements of an inter-Korean agreement, engaging in nuclear war planning with the United States, and seeking closer ties with Japan and NATO.November 3 2024
“Its ever-worsening military moves resulted only in the paradoxical consequences of pushing (North Korea) to stockpile its nuclear weapons at an exponential rate and further develop its nuclear attack capability,” the paper said……………………………………………
The two Koreas have also clashed over balloons of trash floated since May from North Korea.
Pyongyang has said the launches are a response to balloons sent by anti-regime activists in the South…………………………..
Meanwhile, the US on Sunday deployed B-1B bombers for joint aerial drills with South Korea and Japan, in response to North Korea’s recent launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The military exercise showed the three countries’ strong commitment to responding to the North’s nuclear and missile threats through co-operation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
This is the second time this year that the three countries conducted joint air drills and the fourth time in 2024 that the US deployed its strategic bombers on the Korean peninsula, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8809775/south-has-raised-risk-of-nuclear-war-north-korea-says/
Why ‘British’ nuclear weapons are really very American
But the idea that this weapon system is “independent” involves just as much magical thinking and is more myth than fact. Unfortunately, such myths are not harmless but deadly dangerous for every one of us and for the future of our planet.
Lakenheath is RAF in name only as it is primarily populated by US personnel and equipment. US sources have revealed that permission has been given once again for Lakenheath to host US nuclear bombs without prior consultation with the population.
By Lynn Jamieson, Scottish CND, The National 3rd Nov 2024
THE approach of a US election is a good time to consider the reality of the so-called British nuclear weapon system – its integration with and dependence on the United States of America.
Since the first test and use of nuclear bombs in 1945, the heads of the UK Government have brushed aside efforts at international agreement to ban nuclear weapons.
After the Second World War, British prime ministers wanted Britain to have nuclear bombs to keep up with America. Now the British nuclear program can only exist because of “sharing” with America.
The UK Government ignores new efforts at banning nuclear weapons. This is despite knowing that any nuclear war will end comfortable liveable life across most of this planet and that the majority of non-nuclear countries in the world disagree with their viewpoint and support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Deviating from this blinkered commitment to nuclear weapons would rupture the “special relationship” with the USA.
The so-called British nuclear weapon system includes four nuclear-powered submarines each ready to simultaneously launch at least 40 nuclear bombs in clusters, fanning out from eight independently targeted missiles. That is eight regions to be totally obliterated by five bombs each.
This is the system described by this government and governments before it as “Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent”. This name combines the idea that the UK Government alone controls the nuclear weapon system – hence “independent” – and that it will stop any aggressor ever attacking – hence “deterrent”. Both the independent and the deterrent ideas are deeply flawed.
Many things are written about the failures and problems of deterrence, including the possible catastrophic mistakes in games of bluff and counter-bluff, the tendency towards constant escalation in nuclear arms, the target it puts on our back, the absurd costs, and the very real risks created by nurturing mass death machines in your own back yard.
But the idea that this weapon system is “independent” involves just as much magical thinking and is more myth than fact. Unfortunately, such myths are not harmless but deadly dangerous for every one of us and for the future of our planet.
The United States is involved at every level of the so-called British nuclear weapon system, from design and procurement to operation and targeting.
The flow of knowledge, technology, materials and military personnel between the US and the UK is made possible by a number of treaties, most importantly the Mutual Defence Agreement treaty. It was first signed in 1958 and has been extended and expanded multiple times since.
Nuclear bombs assembled in Britain are based on a US design and have components shipped from the USA. The USA also builds, supplies, and maintains the missiles used to “deliver” the bombs to their targets……………………………………………..
Neither the US base nor the subsequent development of the Faslane Royal Navy into a nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered submarine base involved consultation or agreement with Scottish people, a situation that many have resisted ever since………………………………………………………………………………………………
Lakenheath is RAF in name only as it is primarily populated by US personnel and equipment. US sources have revealed that permission has been given once again for Lakenheath to host US nuclear bombs without prior consultation with the population…………………………………………………….. https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24696487.british-nuclear-weapons-really-american/
Banning United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is a new way to kill children, aid groups warn
Electronic Intafada, Maureen Clare Murphy 30 October 2024
Palestinian human rights groups say that new Israeli legislation banning a UN agency from providing services to Palestinians under occupation “aligns with a broader pattern of Israel’s genocidal intent.”
On Monday, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed into law – with near unanimity – two bills that would effectively ban UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, from operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
One of the laws bars state authorities from having any contact with UNRWA, which provides health, education and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories as well as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
“The legislation also terminates the 1967 agreement between Israel and UNRWA with immediate effect,” according to three prominent Palestinian human rights groups: Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
The second law bans the agency from operating in so-called Israeli territory and “will go into effect three months after the passing of the laws – approximately by the end of January 2025,” the rights groups said.
If enacted, the new laws will shutter UNRWA’s headquarters in eastern Jerusalem, which Israel has unlawfully occupied since 1967 and annexed in violation of international law. UNRWA’s Jerusalem headquarters are the administrative hub for its operations across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
According to media reports, Israel plans to build settlements on the site of UNRWA’s headquarters, which state authorities ordered vacated in May.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has the authority to block the legislation. But he is unlikely to do so, despite international pressure, especially after his foreign minister declared António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, persona non grata.
Israel’s unbridled hostility toward the United Nations will only escalate with every attempt towards accountability through the world body’s organs.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council issued a statement declaring its support for UNRWA and warning “against any attempts to dismantle or diminish UNRWA’s operations and mandate.”
“Criminalization of humanitarian aid”
Three prominent Palestinian human rights groups – Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights – said that the passage of the laws is part of a “calculated, decades-long campaign to dismantle UNRWA and undermine the inalienable right of return” of Palestinian refugees.
“Now more than ever, amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, UNRWA’s role is not only essential but irreplaceable,” the groups added.
The new legislation “amounts to the criminalization of humanitarian aid and will worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis,” Agnès Callamard, the head of Amnesty International, said on Tuesday………………………………………………
UNRWA is the agency with the largest humanitarian footprint in the West Bank and Gaza and one of the largest employers in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“Dismantling UNRWA will have a catastrophic impact on the international response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told the president of the General Assembly in a letter on Tuesday. “It will also sabotage any chance of recovery.”
In the absence of any other entity to provide government-like services, the effective ban on UNRWA will leave more than 660,000 children in Gaza without an education. “An entire generation of children will be sacrificed,” Lazzarini said.
The Palestinian rights groups observe that 2.4 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza “will be deprived of essential services – particularly education and healthcare – that only UNRWA has the mandate and capacity to deliver.”
UNRWA staff killed and tortured
Addressing Israel’s allegations, Lazzarini said that UNRWA provided Israel with a list of its staff on an annual basis for 15 years. Personnel that Israel never raised concerns over are now included in its lists of alleged fighters, he said.
Repeated requests to the Israeli government appealing for evidence regarding its allegations against UNRWA staff have gone without a reply, he added.
“UNRWA is therefore in the invidious position of being unable to address allegations for which it has no evidence, while these allegations continue to be used to undermine the agency,” Lazzarini said.
He added that at least 237 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza and more than 200 of its facilities have been damaged or destroyed in attacks that have killed more than 560 people “seeking UN protection.” Meanwhile, “dozens of UNRWA staff have been detained and report being tortured,” Lazzarini said.
Israel has abused UNRWA employees detained in Gaza in order to extract forced confessions incriminating the agency.
Israel’s attacks on UNRWA “are an integral part” of the crumbling of “the rules-based international order … in a repetition of the horrors that led to the establishment of the United Nations,” Lazzarini added………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
At the time that Israel’s Knesset voted to ban UNRWA, some 100,000 Palestinians were under siege in the northern Gaza areas of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya refugee camp without food, water or medical supplies.
“The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying,” Joyce Msuya, the acting UN relief chief, stated two days before the vote. https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/banning-unrwa-new-way-kill-children-aid-groups-warn
Report: US Sitting on Nearly 500 Reports of US Weapons Killing Civilians in Gaza
Officials are reportedly ignoring the Biden administration’s own weapons guidance to continue fueling Israel’s genocide.
By Sharon Zhang , Truthout, October 30, 2024, https://truthout.org/articles/report-us-sitting-on-nearly-500-reports-of-us-weapons-killing-civilians-in-gaza/
iden administration officials are sweeping aside hundreds of reports of Israeli forces using U.S.-provided weapons to slaughter civilians in Gaza, new reporting finds, flouting the administration’s own policies regarding weapons to give Israel a pass.
According to a new report by The Washington Post published Wednesday, the State Department has received nearly 500 reports of U.S. weapons being used in attacks that caused “unnecessary harm” to civilians amid Israel’s genocide. But, despite policies requiring these reports to be urgently investigated, hundreds of the cases are still unresolved, former and current officials cited by the Post said.
In August of last year, the Biden administration established a process for responding to incidents of U.S.-made weapons killing civilians. Under the system, known as the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, officials must recommend actions like a suspension of arms transfers if U.S. weapons are found to have been used to kill civilians by U.S. allies. At the time, the initiative was lauded as a step toward reducing civilian harm and boosting the U.S. commitment to human rights.
The State Department receives the reports from within the government, as well as humanitarian aid groups, media reports and eyewitness accounts. As media reports have demonstrated numerous times over the past year of the genocide, many reports are accompanied by photographic evidence of fragments of U.S. weapons at sites of attacks.
However, as the U.S. has done countless times over the last year of the genocide (and in the decades of Israeli apartheid preceding it), officials are ignoring their own regulations in order to continue fueling Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, and beyond.
Even though the guidance requires investigations to be done within two months, over two-thirds of the cases are unresolved, “with many pending response from the Israeli government, which the State Department consults to verify each case’s circumstances,” the Post writes.
Officials have not taken a single case to the final stage, where action is recommended, officials said, despite the deadlines.
One of the cases reportedly concerns the Israeli military’s killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab and the paramedics who came to save her — despite U.S officials’ public insistence that they are relying only on Israel’s own investigation into the killing. Another regards a horrific Israeli strike in July on the Gaza “humanitarian safe zone” in al-Mawasi, in which Israeli forces dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on civilian areas and killed at least 90 Palestinians.
Humanitarian groups, Gaza officials and weapons experts — including ones within the State Department — have repeatedly said that Israel is making extensive use of U.S. weapons to commit war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. In fact, experts have said that it would be impossible for Israel to carry out the level of destruction it has in Gaza without U.S. help.
The Washington Post report is the latest evidence that the Biden administration is purposefully sidestepping domestic law in its support of Israel.
In a bombshell finding last month, ProPublica found that, this spring, two U.S. agencies had recommended a suspension of weapons transfers to Israel, citing Israel’s humanitarian aid blockade and attacks on aid efforts.
But Secretary of State Antony Blinken lied to Congress about the findings, saying that the government did not assess that Israel has been blocking humanitarian aid just as Israel embarked on its Rafah invasion that would mark the beginning of an even harsher Israeli aid blockade. Now, months later, aid entry into Gaza has hit record lows, as disease and famine plague the population.
Department of Defense Releases Fiscal Year 2024 Military Intelligence Program Budget – just the bare $29.8 billion
Today, the Department of Defense released the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) appropriated top line budget for FY2024. The total was $29.8 billion and is aligned to support the National Defense Strategy.
The Department determined that releasing this top line figure does not jeopardize any classified activities within the MIP. No other MIP budget figures or program details will be released, as they remain classified for national security reasons.
Entire northern Gaza population at risk of dying – UN
Ongoing Israeli military operations in the region disregard basic humanity and the laws of war, a top humanitarian official has said
27 Oct, 2024 , https://www.rt.com/news/606581-un-northern-gaza-dying-population/
What Israeli forces are doing in besieged Gaza during their ongoing war against Hamas cannot be allowed to continue, the United Nation’s top humanitarian official has said.
“The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying,” Joyce Msuya, acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, warned on Saturday, in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Israel has struck hospitals in the region, detained health workers and prevented first responders from rescuing people trapped under the rubble, according to the official.
“Shelters have been emptied and burned down…families have been separated, and men and boys taken away by the truckload,” she said, adding that “such blatant disregard for basic humanity and for the laws of war must stop.”
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, echoed the warning, having voiced deep concerns over the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza. He also highlighted the severe impact of the ongoing hostilities on healthcare in the region.
“Intensive military operations unfolding around and within healthcare facilities and a critical shortage of medical supplies, compounded by severely limited access, are depriving people of life saving care,” Ghebreyesus wrote on X on Saturday.
The WHO Director-General added that Kamal Adwan Hospital in the city of Jabalia, one of the few functioning medical facilities in northern Gaza, has been severely impacted, with only a limited number of staff remaining to care for nearly 200 patients after the detention of 44 male personnel.
Earlier this week, the Health Ministry in the Palestinian enclave claimed that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stormed the hospital, detaining hundreds of staff, patients and displaced people.
The IDF insisted it was operating in and around the facility based on “intelligence information regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the area”.
“In the weeks preceding the operation, the IDF facilitated the evacuation of patients from the area while maintaining emergency services,” it added in a post on social media on Friday.
West Jerusalem has been repeatedly accused of indiscriminately targeting civilians in Gaza. According to the enclave’s health officials, over 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 97,000 wounded since the fighting between Hamas and Israel erupted in October 2023. The IDF has dismissed allegations of committing war crimes, arguing that Hamas is using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
More than a year into the conflict, around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been displaced, most of them multiple times, according to UN estimates.
UN rapporteur: Israel carrying out ‘settler-colonial genocide’ against Palestinians
October 29, 2024, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241029-un-rapporteur-israel-carrying-out-settler-colonial-genocide-against-palestinians/
The UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine issued a report late yesterday accusing Israel of a systematic campaign of forced displacement, destruction and acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
In the report, which was submitted to the UN General Assembly, Francesca Albanese described the “long-term, intentional, state-organised forced displacement and replacement” of Palestinians, particularly following 7 October, 2023.
The report focused on “genocidal intent, contextualising the situation within a decades-long process of territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing aimed at liquidating the Palestinian presence in Palestine.”
“The violence that Israel has unleashed against the Palestinians post-7 October is not happening in a vacuum, but is part of a long-term intentional, systematic, state-organised forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians,” Francesca Albanese warned.
142Shares
The UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine issued a report late yesterday accusing Israel of a systematic campaign of forced displacement, destruction and acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
In the report, which was submitted to the UN General Assembly, Francesca Albanese described the “long-term, intentional, state-organised forced displacement and replacement” of Palestinians, particularly following 7 October, 2023.
The report focused on “genocidal intent, contextualising the situation within a decades-long process of territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing aimed at liquidating the Palestinian presence in Palestine.”
“The violence that Israel has unleashed against the Palestinians post-7 October is not happening in a vacuum, but is part of a long-term intentional, systematic, state-organised forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians,” Albanese warned.
The report also accused Israel of obstructing international investigation efforts, including denying the entry of fact-finding teams from the UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“The persistent denial of access to United Nations mechanisms and investigators of the International Criminal Court (ICC) may constitute obstruction of justice, in defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order that Israel allow international investigators to enter Gaza and take measures to ensure the preservation of evidence,” it said.
She noted that the ongoing “genocide is doubtlessly the consequence of the exceptional status and protracted impunity that has been afforded to Israel.”
“Israel has systematically and flagrantly violated international law, including (UN) Security Council resolutions and ICJ orders,” she said. “This has emboldened the hubris of Israel and its defiance of international law.”
“As the world watches the first live-streamed settler-colonial genocide, only justice can heal the wounds that political expedience has allowed to fester,” she added.
‘Gaza has been made unfit for human life’
The report also drew attention to the magnitude of destruction in Gaza, saying it has prompted allegations of “domicide, urbicide, scholasticide, medicide, cultural genocide and ecocide.”
It estimated that nearly 40 million tonnes of debris, including unexploded ordnance and human remains, contaminate the ecosystem.
Additionally, more than 140 temporary waste sites and 340,000 tonnes of untreated wastewater and sewage overflow have created breeding grounds for diseases such as hepatitis A, respiratory infections, diarrhoea and skin diseases.
“As Israeli leaders promised, Gaza has been made unfit for human life,” the report said.
The report also mentioned Israeli-imposed restrictions on resources essential for Palestinian survival, such as food, water and medical supplies.
“Systematic attacks on Gaza food sovereignty indicate an intent to destroy its population through starvation,” it said, recalling Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s remarks in August stating that starving the entire Gaza population was “justified and moral.”
Escalating genocidal risk in West Bank
The report warned that violence and systematic targeting are spreading beyond Gaza, raising serious concerns of genocidal risk in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Since October 2023, Israeli occupation forces have reportedly conducted over 5,500 raids in the West Bank, with hundreds of Palestinians killed and thousands injured.
Albanese noted that this surge in violence has been fuelled by violent settlers, often supported by Israeli forces, and said these patterns echo the severity of Gaza’s devastation.
She cited alarming instances of Palestinian children being systematically targeted, with at least 169 children killed since October 2023, nearly 80 per cent of whom were shot in the head or torso.
“The devastation inflicted on Gaza is now metastasising to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” she warned, adding that some officials, including Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have publicly supported harsh treatment and mass arrests of Palestinians, with 9,400 currently detained under severe conditions.
States ‘must intervene now’
Albanese called on the international community to act decisively, saying “member states must intervene now to prevent new atrocities that will further scar human history.”
She urged states to use all their political leverage – commencing with a full arms embargo and sanctions – so that Israel stops the assault against the Palestinians, accepts a cease-fire and fully withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territory in line with the ICJ advisory opinion of 19 July.
She asked them to formally recognise Israel as an “apartheid state and persistent violator of international law” while supporting independent and thorough investigations.
The rapporteur also called on states to ensure unhindered humanitarian assistance to Gaza and full financing and protection of UNRWA.
Lastly, she urged the ICC Prosecutor to investigate the commission of the crimes of genocide and apartheid by Israel.
Labour just railroaded a secretive US-UK nuclear treaty renewal deal
by The Canary, 30 October 2024
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) said it condemns the government’s outrageous railroading through parliament of the renewal of the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA), the secretive treaty that underpins the nuclear ‘special relationship’ between London and Washington.
The MDA: under a cloak of secrecy
In force since 1958, the MDA allows for the transfer of key technologies, information, and nuclear materials to and from the US. Since its inception, the treaty has been amendable every ten years, also requiring parliamentary agreement on its extension.
But the government intends to make this treaty permanent by removing the clause that requires the treaty to be extended, and enables debate and amendment, including rejection. CND said:
n an open and democratic society, a major change like this should be given due consideration and debate in parliament. However, the government has disgracefully obstructed this by announcing its planned changes to the MDA just before parliament’s summer recess – guaranteeing six weeks of inaction.
Upon their return, MPs spent much of September and October engaged with party conferences. This shamefully left little time for parliament to debate the proposed changes before the deadline of 23 October.
Labour’s railroading of US nuclear co-operation: CND reacts
CND general secretary Kate Hudson said:
Thousands of CND supporters have contacted their MPs to raise the MDA as an issue for debate in Parliament before the 23 October deadline. Despite this outpouring of public concern, the limited time MPs have spent in Parliament since the election has left very little space for the open discussion this significant but little-known treaty deserves.
The railroading of the MDA by the government is typical of the policy that successive governments have been pursuing when it comes to Britain’s military policies and its possession of nuclear weapons.
This ‘special relationship’ tethers British military and foreign policy to Washington – and makes redundant the claim that Britain has an independent nuclear weapons system. Without US support, Britain would be unable to sustain its nuclear arsenal. Efforts to scrutinise this relationship are regularly deflected by the government under the guise of national security.
SO, CND will protest not only the MDA, but also the return of US nuclear weapons to Britain – ahead of the US presidential election.
CND protesting at Lakenheath on 2 November
The group and its supporters will mobilise at RAF Lakenheath on Saturday 2 November, to oppose plans to station US nuclear weapons in Britain for the first time since 2008.
This will be CND’s fourth national mobilisation at RAF Lakenheath since 2022, after US government budget documents revealed plans for upgrade works at the US-run air base for the storage of the new B61-12 guided nuclear bomb.
With the US presidential election to take place just days later, the protest aims to highlight the significant impact of US foreign and military policy on the British public, and the increased nuclear dangers brought by deploying its nuclear weapons in Britain – by whoever wins the White House.
Attendees will also witness an unofficial declaration of Lakenheath as a nuclear-free zone, and calls for both the UK and other nuclear weapons states to engage with the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
CND will be joined by Melissa Parke ,executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the organisation that won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Melissa will speak about nuclear dangers in Europe.
No US nuclear weapons on UK soil
Details of the protest are as follows:
- Saturday 2 November.
- 12 noon to 3pm.
- RAF Lakenheath Main Gate, Brandon Road, Lakenheath, Suffolk. More details on parking can be found on the CND website here.
…………………………………………………..
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2024/10/30/cnd-nuclear-weapons-treaty/
Israeli Knesset Passes Bill To Ban UN Palestinian Relief Agency
The collapse of UNRWA’s aid efforts in Gaza would ensure the starvation of more Palestinian civilians
by Dave DeCamp October 28, 2024 , https://news.antiwar.com/2024/10/28/israeli-knesset-passes-bill-to-ban-un-palestinian-relief-agency/#gsc.tab=0
The Israeli Knesset on Monday passed a bill banning the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNWRA, from operating inside Israel and another that will severely limit its ability to operate in Gaza and the West Bank. The legislation is expected to take effect in 90 days.
The first bill banning UNWRA in Israel passed in a vote of 92-10. The second bill aimed at ending UNWRA’s operations in the Israeli-occupied territories passed in a vote of 97-9.
The second bill prohibits Israeli authorities from having any contact with UNRWA, making it impossible for the relief agency to coordinate with the Israeli military on aid deliveries. The legislation does not outline any plan to replace UNRWA’s relief efforts in Gaza, which millions of Palestinian civilians rely on to survive.
Israel has waged war against UNWRA over the past year, killing over 200 of its staff members in Gaza. Israel has claimed a significant number of UNWRA’s staff are members of Hamas but has offered no evidence for the allegations, which have been strongly rejected by the UN agency.
The US took Israel’s claims at face value and cut off funding to UNWRA at the beginning of the year. Now, the US is warning Israel against implementing the bills banning UNRWA since it would starve Palestinian civilians.
“If UNRWA goes away, you will see civilians — including children, including babies — not be able to get access to food and water and medicine that they need to live. We find that unacceptable,” State Department spokesman Matt Miller said ahead of the Knesset vote.
“We continue to urge the government of Israel to pause the implementation of this legislation. We urge them not to pass it at all, and we will consider next steps based on what happens in the days ahead,” Miller added.
UNWRA was formed in 1949 to provide aid to about 750,000 Palestinians who were displaced when the state of Israel was founded in 1948, an ethnic cleansing known to the Palestinians as the “Nakba.” Today, Israeli ministers are calling for a new Nakba in Gaza to pave the way for Jewish settlements, and the Israeli military is currently imposing a starvation siege on northern Gaza to forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of civilians.
1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
-
Archives
- April 2026 (34)
- March 2026 (251)
- February 2026 (268)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (257)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 