Humans should teach AI how to avoid nuclear war—while they still can
By Cameron Vega, Eliana Johns | July 22, 2024, https://thebulletin.org/2024/07/humans-should-teach-ai-how-to-avoid-nuclear-war-while-they-still-can/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2M_EOXy8gbl1C9knrlD6Qox7m3ZMlORORVIO7cUXuQjvu7rt1RoN5mWLo_aem_0VOtqNpJ2N7mxCdvmakvNw#post-heading
When considering the potentially catastrophic impacts of military applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a few deadly scenarios come to mind: autonomous killer robots, AI-assisted chemical or biological weapons development, and the 1983 movie WarGames.
The the 1983 movie WarGames, features a self-aware AI-enabled supercomputer that simulates a Soviet nuclear launch and convinces US nuclear forces to prepare for a retaliatory strike. The crisis is only partly averted because the main (human) characters persuade US forces to wait for the Soviet strike to hit before retaliating. It turns out that the strike was intentionally falsified by the fully autonomous AI program. The computer then attempts to launch a nuclear strike on the Soviets without human approval until it is hastily taught about the concept of mutually assured destruction, after which the program ultimately determines that nuclear war is a no-win scenario: “Winner: none.”
US officials have stated that an AI system would never be given US nuclear launch codes or the ability to take control over US nuclear forces. However, AI-enabled technology will likely become increasingly integrated into nuclear targeting and command and control systems to support decision-making in the United States and other nuclear-armed countries. Because US policymakers and nuclear planners may use AI models in conducting analyses and anticipating scenarios that may ultimately influence the president’s decision to use nuclear weapons, the assumptions under which these AI-enabled systems operate require closer scrutiny.
Pathways for AI integration. The US Defense Department and Energy Department already employ machine learning and AI models to make calculation processes more efficient, including for analyzing and sorting satellite imagery from reconnaissance satellites and improving nuclear warhead design and maintenance processes. The military is increasingly forward-leaning on AI-enabled systems. For instance, it initiated a program in 2023 called Stormbreaker that strives to create an AI-enabled system called “Joint Operational Planning Toolkit” that will incorporate “advanced data optimization capabilities, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to support planning, war gaming, mission analysis, and execution of all-domain, operational level course of action development.” While AI-enabled technology presents many benefits for security, it also brings significant risks and vulnerabilities.
One concern is that the systemic use of AI-enabled technology and an acceptance of AI-supported analysis could become a crutch for nuclear planners, eroding human skills and critical thinking over time. This is particularly relevant when considering applications for artificial intelligence in systems and processes such as wargames that influence analysis and decision-making. For example, NATO is already testing and preparing to launch an AI system designed to assist with operational military command and control and decision-making by combining an AI wargaming tool and machine learning algorithms. Even though it is still unclear how this system will impact decision-making led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group concerning US nuclear weapons stationed in Europe, this type of AI-powered analytical tool would need to consider escalation factors inherent to nuclear weapons and could be used to inform targeting and force structure analysis or to justify politically motivated strategies.
The role given to AI technology in nuclear strategy, threat prediction, and force planning can reveal more about how nuclear-armed countries view nuclear weapons and nuclear use. Any AI model is programmed under certain assumptions and trained on selected data sets. This is also true of AI-enabled wargames and decision-support systems tasked with recommending courses of action for nuclear employment in any given scenario. Based on these assumptions and data sets alone, the AI system would have to assist human decision-makers and nuclear targeters in estimating whether the benefits of nuclear employment outweigh the cost and whether a nuclear war is winnable.
Do the benefits of nuclear use outweigh the costs? Baked into the law of armed conflict is a fundamental tension between any particular military action’s gains and costs. Though fiercely debated by historians, the common understanding of the US decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 demonstrates this tension: an expedited victory in East Asia in exchange for hundreds of thousands of Japanese casualties.
Understanding how an AI algorithm might weigh the benefits and costs of escalation depends on how it integrates the country’s nuclear policy and strategy. Several factors contribute to one’s nuclear doctrine and targeting strategy—ranging from fear of consequences of breaking the tradition of non-use of nuclear weapons to concern of radioactive contamination of a coveted territory and to sheer deterrence because of possible nuclear retaliation by an adversary. While strategy itself is derived from political priorities, military capabilities, and perceived adversarial threats, nuclear targeting incorporates these factors as well as many others, including the physical vulnerability of targets, overfly routes, and accuracy of delivery vehicles—all aspects to further consider when making decisions about force posture and nuclear use.
In the case of the United States, much remains classified about its nuclear decision-making and cost analysis. It is understood that, under guidance from the president, US nuclear war plans target the offensive nuclear capabilities of certain adversaries (both nuclear and non-nuclear armed) as well as the infrastructure, military resources, and political leadership critical to post-attack recovery. But while longstanding US policy has maintained to “not purposely threaten civilian populations or objects” and “not intentionally target civilian populations or targets in violation of [the law of armed conflict],” the United States has previously acknowledged that “substantial damage to residential structures and populations may nevertheless result from targeting that meets the above objectives.” This is in addition to the fact that the United States is the only country to have used its nuclear weapons against civilians in war.
There is limited public information with which to infer how an AI-enabled system would be trained to consider the costs of nuclear detonation. Certainly, any plans for nuclear employment are determined by a combination of mathematical targeting calculations and subjective analysis of social, economic, and military costs and benefits. An AI-enabled system could improve some of these analyses in weighing certain military costs and benefits, but it could also be used to justify existing structures and policies or further ingrain biases and risk acceptance into the system. These factors, along with the speed of operation and innate challenges in distinguishing between data sets and origins, could also increase the risks of escalation—either deliberate or inadvertent.
Is a nuclear war “winnable”? Whether a nuclear war is winnable depends on what “winning” means. Policymakers and planners may define winning as merely the benefits of nuclear use outweighing the cost when all is said and done. When balancing costs and benefits, the benefits need only be one “point” higher for an AI-enabled system to deem the scenario a “win.”
In this case, “winning” may be defined in terms of national interest without consideration of other threats. A pyrrhic victory could jeopardize national survival immediately following nuclear use and still be considered a win by the AI algorithm. Once a nuclear weapon has been used, it could either incentivize an AI system to not recommend nuclear use or, on the contrary, recommend the use of nuclear weapons on a broader scale to eliminate remaining threats or to preempt further nuclear strikes.
“Winning” a nuclear war could also be defined in much broader terms. The effects of nuclear weapons go beyond the immediate destruction within their blast radius; there would be significant societal implications from such a traumatic experience, including potential mass migration and economic catastrophe, in addition to dramatic climatic damage that could result in mass global starvation. Depending on how damage is calculated and how much weight is placed on long-term effects, an AI system may determine that a nuclear war itself is “unwinnable” or even “unbearable.
Uncovering biases and assumptions. The question of costs and benefits is relatively uncontroversial in that all decision-making involves weighing the pros and cons of any military option. However, it is still unknown how an AI system will weigh these costs and benefits, especially given the difficulty of comprehensively modeling all the effects of nuclear weapon detonations. At the same time, the question of winning a nuclear war has long been a thorn in the side of nuclear strategists and scholars. All five nuclear-weapon states confirmed in 2022 that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” For them, planning to win a nuclear war would be considered inane and, therefore, would not require any AI assistance. However, deterrence messaging and discussion of AI applications for nuclear planning and decision-making illuminate the belief that the United States must be prepared to fight—and win—a nuclear war.
ICAN Statement on Nuclear Sharing to the 2024 Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee.
https://www.icanw.org/ican_statement_to_npt_prepcom_2024 23 July 24
The Second Session of the Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference is taking place in Geneva from July 22 to August 2nd. On the second day of the meeting, Naomi Zoka from Pax Christi Flanders (Belgium) delivered ICAN’s statement to the states parties. Please find the full statement below.
Distinguished Delegates,
Nuclear risks are on the rise. The chance of nuclear weapons use are higher than at any other time in my- and many others in this room’s- lifetime. Nuclear-armed States are launching threats faster than they are test-launching delivery systems, resulting in a less stable, less secure and more dangerous world.
That is not the world in which we want to live. We cannot abide by policies in which one -or nine – countries are allowed to hold the rest of the world hostage through weapons of mass destruction, because the use of those weapons knows no borders. A conflict involving nuclear weapons thousands of miles from this conference room will still cause chaos and catastrophe to all of us, our families, and our future.
We do not need to see nuclear weapons used in war again to know their impact. As W.J. Hennigan wrote in the New York Times, recently:
The United States and the Soviet Union might have narrowly avoided mutual destruction, but there was a nuclear war: The blitz of testing left a wake of illness, displacement and destruction, often in remote locations where marginalized communities had no say over what happened on their own land.
The over 2000 nuclear tests – conducted primarily by the nuclear weapons states in this room- forever altered the lives of these thousands of women, men and children, and of little girls in particular, as girls exposed to nuclear weapons use and testing got cancer at twice the rate as the boys. Even before their creation, nuclear weapons have facilitated suffering amongst the oppressed. From the Shinkolobwe mines in Eastern DRC where locals were forced into Uranium mines by their colonial rulers, to the multiple generations still battling life threatening diseases. Nuclear weapons have and always will be a tool for oppression regardless of which state possesses them.
Today, many survivors are demanding justice and accountability, and that nuclear weapons be eliminated once and for all, so that what happens to them, may never happen again.
Yet the nuclear-armed countries are recklessly embarking on a new nuclear arms race.
Every year, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons, ICAN, exposes the unacceptable nuclear weapons. Despite their commitments under NPT’s Article VI, the nuclear-armed states in the NPT spent $86 billion dollars on their arsenals in 2023.
US spending accounts for 54% of the global total, at $51.5 billion, while China and Russia also spent exorbitant amounts at $11.8 billion and $8.3 billion respectively. The UK increased spending by 17% from the previous year. Across the board, every nuclear-armed state increased the amount spent on their arsenals. Meanwhile the profit-seeking private industry hires powerful lobbyists to secure billion dollar contracts to develop these weapons of mass destruction.
Runaway nuclear spending is increasing the risks of nuclear weapons use- as are the applications of emerging technologies to nuclear weapons command, control, communications and delivery systems. We are entering an era of AI assisted information gathering to facilitate decision making.
But reducing the time needed to reach the only conclusion in the interest of humanity puts catastrophe seconds, instead of minutes away, as Annie Jacobsen’s “Nuclear War: A Scenario” recently reminded us. The decision whether or not to use nuclear weapons doesn’t need artificial intelligence – common sense says that it must always be no.
Another growing concern is the proliferation of nuclear weapons deployed on foreign territories. With Russia’s stationing of weapons in Belarus, and the continued US deployment of weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Türkiye, the NPT is failing to meet its first principles.
Nuclear weapons deployed in Europe are designed to be used in Europe. But the consequences will not stay on this continent- and this continued deployment is decreasing security for others.
The weapons in Europe illustrate another problem with nuclear weapons, one that is often raised in these rooms- and that is the lack of transparency. As citizens in the countries hosting nuclear weapons, we have repeatedly called for the bombs to be removed, but our governments claim they cannot discuss the issue- that it is not something they can confirm or deny.
It seems that governments who support the use of nuclear weapons on their behalf believe in just enough transparency to make nuclear threats credible, but not enough transparency to enable effective democracy.
The practice of nuclear sharing has been allowed to continue for far too long, and now it is spreading. How will the governments currently defending the practice feel when weapons start to appear in countries outside of Europe? There are proposals out there that would spread nuclear weapons around the world- the very antithesis of the treaty we’re here to discuss. Nuclear sharing is unacceptable.
That is why the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is so clear on the matter. Under the TPNW, a state cannot put the population of another state in jeopardy by deploying nuclear bombs in their country. It is clear, and clarity provides safety, security and reassurance.
The TPNW is also where progress is happening on disarmament. The robust intersessional process, the dynamic and highly engaging Meetings of States Parties, and the commitment to the same tenets that underpin the NPT and form its preamble, are sincere.
It is in the TPNW that the girls harmed by nuclear weapons use and testing are finding a pathway to justice. It is in the TPNW that the security concerns of all states, not just a few, are taken seriously and given due consideration.
The path to a world without nuclear weapons lies through the TPNW, and we invite all states to join us as we move closer to it without delay.
Thank you.
EU sets date of transfer of Russian money to Ukraine for arms purchases
https://www.rt.com/news/601527-borrell-ukraine-tranche-russia-assets/— 23 July 24
Kiev will receive €1.4 billion, the interest accrued on frozen funds, early next month, the bloc’s top diplomat has said
The EU has revealed when it will begin sending Russian money to Ukraine. The bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell has claimed that the first tranche of interest accruing on some €300 billion in frozen Russian assets, totaling some €1.4 billion, will be sent to Kiev in the first week of August to fund arms purchases.
The EU’s top diplomat specified that the funds will be used to meet the key needs of Kiev’s military, including air defense, artillery, “and also, and this is new, procurement for the Ukrainian defense industry.”
“So, we are not going only to provide military support to Ukraine but from Ukraine itself. Which is certainly the most logical and efficient thing we can do,” Borrell concluded.
The EU and G7 group of nations blocked some $280 billion (€260 billion) of sovereign funds belonging to the Central Bank of Russia days after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. The bulk of the frozen funds are held in the EU, primarily in the Belgium-based depositary and clearing house Euroclear.
Earlier this year, EU authorities approved a scheme enabling the appropriation of interest accrued on the frozen funds to back Ukraine’s recovery and military defense. Under the agreement, 90% of the money is expected to go into an EU-run fund for Ukrainian military aid, with the other 10% is to be allocated for supporting Kiev in other ways.
Moscow has repeatedly said that any steps taken to transfer its assets without its consent would amount to “theft,” insisting that tapping the funds or engaging in similar moves would violate international law and lead to retaliation.
Earlier this year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that the expropriation of Russian sovereign assets could create a dangerous precedent and become a “solid nail in the coffin” of the Western economic system. He stressed that Moscow would inevitably retaliate against such a move by launching legal proceedings against entities that tap its assets.
Will US defend Japan with nukes or turn it into the line of fire?
By Global Times, Jul 22, 2024
The US, which bombed Japan with nuclear weapons, is reportedly about to protect Japan with nuclear weapons. Reports show that Japan and the US will draft their first joint document on expanded deterrence policy, which will include a clause affirming nuclear weapons will be included in US methods to defend Japan. However, it might be premature if Japan feels moved by this.
Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, citing sources, reported that the document will specify measures that the US could take in peacetime and emergencies; as well as conditions under which the US could take retaliatory actions against third countries, and what those measures could be, under the backdrop of so-called threats from China and Russia. The foreign and defense ministers of Japan and the US will discuss the details at a meeting in Tokyo later this month, according to the report. …………………………………………..
Both the US and Japan have their own calculations behind the push for this joint document. Japan wants to boost its deterrent capabilities through military alliance with the US. Washington hopes to make Tokyo a thornier pawn in its “Indo-Pacific Strategy.” Claims of “threats” from China and Russia are merely far-fetched excuse – the US simply wishes Japan to be more proactive toward China and Russia under the nuclear umbrella, so as to alleviate US pressure in countering both countries.
The essence of today’s US nuclear umbrella in the Asia-Pacific region is not about protection. Rather, it serves as a platform for the US to disrupt regional stability among major powers through providing excuses to enhance strategic offensive capabilities of US allies.
Japan, a non-nuclear weapon state, would hardly become a primary target for nuclear strikes, if there will be one. Still, the US is now pulling Japan in its “nuclear protection circle” while mulling to deploy nuclear weapons to Japan. In that scenario, Japan could be viewed as a nuclear-weapon state. The US is pushing Japan to be the next battleground. And by promoting the joint document, Japan demonstrates its readiness to be considered a potential nuclear target due to its alliance with the US…………………………………………………………………… more https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202407/1316500.shtml
AUKUS – Australia-United Kingdom-United States nuclear pact endangers us all.
Agreement is proliferation nightmare
By Jemila Rushton https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/07/21/agreement-is-proliferation-nightmare/—
Australia arms up with UK and US help
The following is a statement to be delivered on July 23 at the 2024 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee event in Geneva by Jemila Rushton, Acting Director, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Australia. It was endorsed by a number of groups, including Beyond Nuclear. It has been adapted slightly for style as a written piece rather than oral delivery.
We gather in uncertain and dangerous times. All nine nuclear armed states are investing in modernizing their arsenals, none are winding back policies for their use. The number of available deployed nuclear weapons is increasing. We do not have the luxuries of time or inaction.
Against this background where the proliferation of nuclear weapons is an ongoing concern, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America continue to further develop AUKUS, an expanded trilateral security partnership between these three governments.
AUKUS has two pillars. Pillar One was first announced in September 2021 and relates to information, training and technologies being shared by the US and UK to Australia to deliver eight nuclear powered submarines to Australia. Vessels which, if they eventuate, will utilize significant quantities of highly enriched uranium (HEU). It also allows Australia to purchase existing US nuclear submarines. Currently, Australia is committing billions of dollars to both US and UK submarine industry facilities as part of the AUKUS agreement, potentially enabling the further development of nuclear armed capability in these programs.
Two years ago, during the 2022 NPT Review Conference, many governments expressed concern that the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal would undermine the NPT, increase regional tensions, lead to proliferation, and threaten nuclear accidents in the ocean. There remains an urgent need to critique the nuclear proliferation risks posed by AUKUS.
The Australian decision to enter into agreements around nuclear powered submarines was made on the assumption that it would be permitted to divert nuclear material for a non-prescribed military purpose, by utilizing Paragraph 14 of the International Atomic Agency’s (IAEA) Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA). The ‘loophole’ of Paragraph 14 potentially allows non-nuclear armed states to acquire nuclear material, which would be removed from IAEA safeguards.
Australia’s proposed acquisition of large quantities of HEU outside of usual IAEA safeguards and scrutiny jeopardizes nonproliferation efforts and fissile material security. This conference has the mandate to prepare recommendations for the upcoming Review Conference to strengthen rather than weaken the global nonproliferation regime by moving to close the Paragraph 14 loophole. States represented here should negotiate the closure of the Paragraph 14 loophole in the NPT, as it permits Australia and other non-nuclear armed states to obtain nuclear-powered submarines and potentially weapons-grade HEU.
To eliminate the risk of non nuclear weapons states acquiring nuclear weapons grade HEU, all states, including AUKUS members, should refrain from sharing the technology and materials that will be transferred if Australia and others acquire nuclear-powered submarines. The paragraph 14 loophole undermines the NPT and needs to be closed.
Pillar Two of AUKUS plans to enhance the joint capabilities and interoperability between the partners, and may draw in other countries to AUKUS. This move is vastly out of step with a strong sense of Pacific regionalism and the long-standing commitment to a Nuclear Free Pacific. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga) is being put under strain in this agreement. It is of grave concern that currently Japan, Canada and Aotearoa/New Zealand are actively considering their engagement with AUKUS Pillar 2.
We are concerned that the AUKUS trilateral partnership, and any further expansions will exacerbate regional tensions, fuel an arms race and increase risks of war in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly involving China and the United States, and will increase the danger of nuclear escalation in any such conflict.
Within Australia, First Nations communities have expressed deep concern about the imposition of new military and radioactive waste facilities on their lands. First Nations and broader communities across Australia and throughout the Pacific have noted that AUKUS is part of a rapid militarization of the region, and raises the ever-present threat of nuclear conflict. Recognizing the disproportionate impacts of previous nuclear activities on First Nations or Indigenous Peoples, and the on-going legacies of nuclear weapons testing and activities in the region, there is deep concern for what AUKUS will mean for sovereignty of Small Island States and its impacts on Indigenous lands and Peoples.
The fuel for HEU naval propulsion reactors is weapons-grade, and the spent fuel is weapons-usable. HEU is the most suitable material for ready and rapid conversion into a nuclear bomb. While removing HEU from a submarine would not be an easy process, the possibility of diverting such material for weapons purposes cannot be ruled out. Meaningful safeguards are extremely limited when the material is on a stealth platform that can disappear for six months at a time.
With the entry into force of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), there is a mandate to strengthen existing non-proliferation mechanisms. By joining the TPNW, governments can legally confirm that they will not acquire or host nuclear weapons, nor assist with their use or threat of use. We affirm that AUKUS members should make firm their commitments to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament by joining the TPNW as a matter of urgency.
Jemila Rushton is the Acting Director, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Australia
Russia Says It May Deploy Nuclear Missiles in Response to New US Missile Deployment to Germany
by Dave DeCamp July 18, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/07/18/russia-says-it-may-deploy-nuclear-missiles-in-response-to-new-us-missile-deployment-to-germany/
The US is deploying missiles previously banned by the INF, a treaty between the US and Russia the Trump administration left in 2019
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Thursday that Moscow won’t rule out deploying nuclear missiles in response to the US planning to deploy missile systems to Germany in 2026 that were previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
“I don’t rule anything out,” Ryabkov said when asked about the possibility of a nuclear deployment.
Ryabkov went on to reference Kaliningrad, the Russian Oblast on the Baltic Sea that’s wedged between Lithuania and Poland and separated from the rest of Russia. He said the territory “has long attracted the unhealthy attention of our opponents.”
Hinting Russia could respond to the US deployment by sending weapons to Kaliningrad, Ryabkov said, “Kaliningrad is no exception in terms of our 100 percent determination to do everything necessary to push back those who may harbor aggressive plans and who try to provoke us to take certain steps that are undesirable for anyone and are fraught with further complications.”
The INF, which the US withdrew from in 2019, prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles. The planned US deployment to Germany includes a land-based version of nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of about 1,000 miles and are primarily used by US Navy ships and submarines.
The US announced the deployment during last week’s NATO summit in Washington and said it would also include SM-6 missiles and “developmental hypersonic weapons.” Based on the statement, the US likely plans to deploy a Typhon launcher, a covert system concealed in a 40-foot shipping container that can fire Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles. The SM-6 can hit targets up to 290 miles away, below the levels previously banned by the INF.
When the US withdrew from the INF treaty, it claimed Russia was violating the agreement by developing the ground-launched 9M729 cruise missile. Russian officials denied the missile was a violation, saying it had a maximum range of 298 miles.
Russia also said the US was violating the INF by establishing Aegis Ashore missile defense systems in Romania and Poland. The systems use Mk-41 vertical launchers, which can fit Tomahawk missiles. During the NATO summit, the US also announced that its Aegis system in Poland is now operational.
The US refused to negotiate with Russia on the INF issues, and the Trump administration tore up the treaty in August 2019 and began testing previously banned missile systems almost immediately after. It was clear the US exited the treaty so it could deploy intermediate-range missiles near China, leading Russia to propose a moratorium on the deployment of INF missiles in Europe. But the US never accepted the offer.
NATO’s Obscure Relations With Israel and its weapons industry
With the exception of Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, and Belgium, the remainder of the 32 NATO members continue to sell/send weapons to Israel as Israel conducts genocide operations on Palestinians in Gaza.
Ann Wright, WorldBeyondWar , July 20, 2024
Ann Wright on the arms flowing between members of the military alliance and Israel, which despite its small size, ranks as the 15th top weapons importer in the world.
NATO has a long, close and relatively unknown relationship with Israel that in 2016 resulted in the establishment of an Israel office in the Brussels headquarters of the military alliance.
Underscoring the importance to Israel’s association with NATO, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said upon the opening of the office, “This is an important step that helps Israel’s security. It is further proof to the status of Israel and the willingness of many organizations to cooperate with us in the field of security.”
NATO’s invitation to Israel to take up residence in NATO headquarters was a result of pressure by other NATO members on Turkey to drop its veto of the invitation. The invitation arose through a new NATO partnership policy beginning in 2014 but Turkey vetoed the invitation until 2016.
Behind the scenes negotiations between Turkey and Israel in 2015 warmed the chilly relationship that had been essentially severed between the countries in 2010 over Israeli commandos killing 10 Turkish activists and wounding over 50 participants on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship bound for Gaza as a part of the seven-ship Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
According to NATO documents, NATO and Israel have worked together for almost 30 years, cooperating in science and technology, counter terrorism, civil preparedness, countering weapons of mass destruction and women, peace and security.
To strengthen NATO naval interoperability NATO brought on Israel as a partner for its Operation Sea Guardian. Israel’s military medical academy now serves as a “unique asset” for NATO’s Partnership Training and Education Centers community.
Israel is not officially integrated in NATO but is part of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a program sponsored by NATO in cooperation with seven countries of the Mediterranean.
Arms Dealing
NATO’s long-standing working relationship with Israel has translated into NATO countries selling weapons to Israel and other countries buying weapons from Israel’s big weapons industry.
With the exception of Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, and Belgium, the remainder of the 32 NATO members continue to sell/send weapons to Israel as Israel conducts genocide operations on Palestinians in Gaza.
Due to a court case, Denmark may suspend export of F-35 fighter jet parts to the U.S., because the U.S. sells the jets to Israel.
Even Latvia sold weapons to Israel, while Lithuania bought weapons from Israel. Greece, Albania, Slovakia, and many other NATO countries have purchased military equipment from Israel.
The Action on Armed Violence has a comprehensive worldwide listing of weapons sales and transfers to Israel.
US Main Supplier of Foreign-Sourced Weapons
Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 billion in economic and military assistance. Since Oct. 7, 2023, the U.S. has passed legislation that has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which included $3.8 billion from legislation in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriation in April 2024.
Since Oct. 7, only two of the more than one hundred military aid transfers to Israel have reportedly met the congressional review threshold of $250 million to be made public, and since the records for the other weapons transfers have not been made public, we can’t be sure .
Additionally, the Israeli military received expedited deliveries of weapons from a strategic stockpile of weapons that is normally used to replenishment weapons for U.S. units in the Middle East. The U.S. has maintained massive warehouses for the stockpile of a huge variety and amount of weapons since the 1980s.
All of the Israeli Air Force’s manned aircraft that are bombing people in Gaza are American-made, with the exception of one helicopter built by France’s Airbus Helicopters. Israel is the first international operator of the U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most technologically advanced fighter jet ever made, and had taken delivery of 36 of 75 F-35s by the end of 2023, paying for them with U.S. assistance.
In 2016 the U.S. and Israel signed a third 10-year Memorandum of Understanding covering the 2018-2028 period providing for $38 billion in military aid; $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment; and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israel received 69 percent of its military aid from the U.S. in the 2019-2023 period, according to a March fact sheet issued by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Israel ranks 98th in world population, with a population of 9.4 million, only 0.11 percent of the world’s population, and ranks 154th of all countries in land mass. Despite its small population and land, a study by SIPRI ranks Israel as the world’s 15th top weapons importer, receiving 2.1 percent of all imports, according to globally available data from 2019-2023. Israel is the world’s 9th top weapons exporter, responsible for 2.4 percent of exports.
Germany 2nd Largest Supplier
Germany is the second largest weapons provider to Israel providing around 30 percent of all foreign weapons to Israel. In 2023, Germany approved military equipment and arms exports to Israel worth $353.70 million, a 10-fold increase compared with 2022, This includes four submarines. according to the German Economy Ministry data and data submitted to the International Court of Justice in Nicaragua’s case against Germany for complicity in the genocide of Gaza.
In April, Nicaragua argued that Germany had breached the U.N. Genocide Convention by sending military hardware to Israel, thereby aiding and abetting genocide and violating international humanitarian law in Gaza…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
German Member of Parliament Sevim Dagdelen spoke in Washington, D.C., on July 6 at the NO to NATO; YES to PEACE symposium and on July 7 at the rally for peace at the White House.
[See: 75 Years of NATO = 75 Years of Denial]
In her talks, she said that while from 2019 to 2023, 30 percent of weapons into Israel came from Germany, in 2023, the percentage of weapons sent to Israel dramatically increased to 47 percent from Germany while the U.S. supplied 53 percent.
Dagdelen spoke of three myths concerning NATO.
First myth: That NATO is a defensive alliance abiding by international law………………………….
Second myth: That NATO stands for democracy and the rule of law……………………………..
Third myth: That NATO is a community of shared values and stands for human rights…………………..
Italy, UK & France
From 2013-2023, Italy was the third highest weapons seller to Israel providing 4.7 percent of foreign weapons, according to SIPRI .
In 2023, Britain granted export licenses to sell at least $52.5 million of military equipment to Israel — mainly munitions, unmanned air vehicles, small arms ammunition and components for aircraft, helicopters, and assault rifles……………………………….
Not Just NATO Members
South Korea’s weapons trade with Israel has grown significantly, with $47 million worth of arms sales to Israel over the past 10 years. The Hyundai corporation has sold equipment to Israel that is used to demolish Palestinian homes for Israeli settlement.
Penny Wong, the Australian foreign affairs minister, has said her country has not supplied weapons since the start of the Gaza conflict yet data from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) shows that in February 2024 alone Australia directly exported over $1.5 million in “arms and ammunition” to Israel. At an Australian Senate Estimates hearing, the chief economist of DFAT acknowledged that Australia has exported $10 million worth of “arms and ammunition” to Israel over the past five years……………………………..
Washington Summit Statement Silent on Genocide
While NATO members are deeply complicit in the Israeli genocide of Gaza, the final statement of the NATO summit in Washington mentioned nothing about the Israeli genocide of Gaza,………………………………………………
Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. She served 16 years as a U.S. diplomat and resigned from the U.S. government in 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. She is a co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
The original version of this article was published by WorldBeyondWar.
Israeli soldiers tell story of savage cruelty in Gaza – one given blessing by the West
Israel has learned that, the more routine its war crimes become, the less coverage they receive – and the less outrage they provoke.
Last week, western doctors who had volunteered in Gaza said Israel was packing its weapons with shrapnel to maximise injuries to those caught in the blast radius. Children, because of their smaller bodies, were being left with much more severe wounds.
In recent days, Israel has struck several United Nations schools serving as shelters, killing dozens more Palestinians. On Tuesday, another strike in the “safe zone” of al-Mawasi killed 17.
According to the UN refugee agency, Unrwa, more than 70 percent of its schools – almost all of them serving as refugee shelters – have been bombed.
Middle East Eye, Jonathan Cook, 19 July 2024
Women and children are being targeted intentionally, say Israeli whistleblowers. From ground troops to commanders, the rules of war have been shredded
hey just keep coming. On the weekend, Israel launched another devastating air strike on Gaza, killing at least 90 Palestinians and wounding hundreds more, including women, children and rescue workers.
Once again, Israel targeted refugees displaced by its earlier bombs, turning an area it had formally declared a “safe zone” into a killing field.
And once more, western powers shrugged their shoulders. They were too busy accusing Russia of war crimes to have time to worry about the far worse war crimes being inflicted on Gaza by their Israeli ally – with weapons they supplied.
The atrocity committed at al-Mawasi camp, packed with 80,000 civilians, had the usual Israeli cover story – one rolled out to reassure western publics that their leaders are not the utter hypocrites they appear to be for supporting what the World Court has described as a “plausible genocide”.
Israel said it was trying to hit two Hamas leaders – one of them Mohammed Deif, head of the group’s military wing – although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed uncertain as to whether the strike was successful.
No one in the western media appeared to wonder why the pair preferred to make themselves a target in an overcrowded, makeshift refugee camp, where they were at huge risk of being betrayed by an Israeli informant, rather than sheltering in Hamas’s extensive tunnel network.
Or why Israel deemed it necessary to fire a multitude of massive bombs and missiles to take out two individuals. Is that Israel’s new, expansive redefinition of a “targeted assassination”?
Or why its pilots and drone operators continued the strikes to hit emergency rescue crews dealing with the initial destruction. Was there intelligence that Deif was not just hiding in the camp, but had hung around to dig out survivors, too?
Or how killing and maiming hundreds of civilians in an attempt to hit two Hamas fighters could ever possibly satisfy the most basic principles of international law. “Proportion” and “distinction” require armies to weigh the military advantage of an attack against the expected toll on civilian life.
Biblical vengeance
But Israel has torn up the rulebook on war. According to sources within the Israeli military, it now considers it acceptable to kill more than 100 Palestinian civilians in the pursuit of a single Hamas commander – a commander, let us note, who will simply be replaced the moment he is dead.
Even if the two Hamas leaders were assassinated, Israel could not have been in any doubt that it was perpetrating a war crime. But it has learned that, the more routine its war crimes become, the less coverage they receive – and the less outrage they provoke.
In recent days, Israel has struck several United Nations schools serving as shelters, killing dozens more Palestinians. On Tuesday, another strike in the “safe zone” of al-Mawasi killed 17.
According to the UN refugee agency, Unrwa, more than 70 percent of its schools – almost all of them serving as refugee shelters – have been bombed.
Last week, western doctors who had volunteered in Gaza said Israel was packing its weapons with shrapnel to maximise injuries to those caught in the blast radius. Children, because of their smaller bodies, were being left with much more severe wounds.
Aid agencies cannot properly treat the wounded, because Israel has been blocking the entry of medical supplies into Gaza.
Committing war crimes, if western publics have not worked it out by now, is the very point of the “military operation” Israel launched in Gaza in the wake of Hamas’s one-day attack on 7 October.
That is why there are more than 38,800 known deaths from Israel’s 10-month assault – and likely at least four times that number unrecorded, according to leading researchers writing in the Lancet medical journal this month.
That is why it will take at least 15 years to clear the rubble strewn across Gaza by Israeli bombs, according to the UN, and as much as 80 years – and $50bn – to rebuild homes for the remnants of the enclave’s 2.3 million people still alive at the end.
Israel’s twin goals have been biblical vengeance and the elimination of Gaza – a genocidal rampage to drive the terrified population out, ideally into neighbouring Egypt.
Shoot-everyone policy
If that was not clear enough already, six Israeli soldiers recently stepped forward to speak out about what they had witnessed while serving in Gaza – a story the western media has entirely failed to report.
Their testimonies, published by the Israel-based publication 972 last week, confirm what Palestinians have been saying for months.
Commanders have authorised them to open fire on Palestinians at will. Anyone entering an area the Israeli military is treating as a “no-go zone” is shot on sight, whether man, woman or child.
After months of an Israeli aid blockade that has created a man-made famine, Israel’s military has turned the people of Gaza’s ever-more frantic search for food into a game of Russian roulette.
This perhaps explains, in part, why so many Palestinians are unaccounted for – Save the Children estimates some 21,000 children are missing. The soldiers quoted in 972 say the victims of their shoot-everyone policy are bulldozed out of view along routes where international aid convoys pass.
A reserve soldier, identified only as S, said a Caterpillar bulldozer “clears the area of corpses, buries them under the rubble, and flips [them] aside so that the convoys don’t see it – [so that] images of people in advanced stages of decay don’t come out”. The soldier also noted: “The whole area [of Gaza where the army operates] was full of bodies… There is a horrific smell of death.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… A whistleblower from the Netzah Yehuda battalion who spoke to CNN said the commanders, drawn from Israel’s religious extremist ultra-Orthodox sector, stoked a culture of violence towards Palestinians, including vigilante-style attacks…………………………………………………………………………….more https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israeli-soldiers-tell-story-savage-cruelty-gaza-west-gives-blessing?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
NATO/US Complicity in Israel’s Relentless Genocide of Gaza
Only 4 of 32 NATO Members do NOT Sell Weapons to Israel or Buy Weapons from Israel
Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 BILLION dollars in economic and military assistance. Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has passed legislation that has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which included $3.8 billion from legislation in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriation in April 2024.
Biden says U.S. should not have “Killing Fields,” while he is complicit in the Israeli “Killing Fields” in Gaza.
ANN WRIGHT, JUL 17, 2024, LA Progressive
As Israel continued its relentless genocide on steroids of Palestinians in Gaza with over 140 killed in the past weekend, imprisonment without charges of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and destruction of the hospitals, universities, schools (8 UNRWA schools bombed in the past 10 days), cultural centers and indiscriminate bombing of markets, soccer fields and “safe area” residents of Gaza have been forced into, an assassination attempt was made on former President Trump and NATO finished its gala 75th Anniversary celebrations in Washington, DC.
Biden Says “U.S. Politics Should Never Be A Killing Field,” While He is complicit in the Israeli “Killing Fields” in Gaza
As the genocide continued and a few days after the end of the NATO celebrations, an assassination attempt on former President Trump caused President Biden to address the nation and orate that “political violence has no place in America and U.S. politics should never be a killing field.”
The statement of no political violence and no killing fields in America rings totally hollow as the Biden administration and NATO countries fuel the Israeli killing fields in Gaza with over 90 Palestinians killed and 300 wounded by multiple Israeli rocket attacks in Khan Yunis on Saturday, July 12, and 80 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours of July 13 in several refugee camps.
NATO members fuel the Genocide of Gaza by Selling/Sending Weapons to Israel
Heads of 32 NATO member states and 10 NATO “global partners”, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Colombia, Mongolia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, met in Washington, DC at the 75th Anniversary events of NATO.
Some of the NATO members and partners are the same countries that are aiding and abetting the Israeli genocide of Gaza.
An Office for the State of Israel Located in the NATO Headquarters
NATO has a long, close and relatively unknown relationship with Israel that, eight years ago, resulted in establishment of an Israeli office in NATO headquarters in Brussels in 2016. Underscoring the importance to Israeli association with NATO, Prime Minister Netanyahu said upon the opening of the office, “This is an important step that helps Israel’s security. It is further proof to the status of Israel and the willingness of many organizations to cooperate with us in the field of security.”
The invitation from NATO for Israel to have an office in NATO headquarters was a result of pressure by other NATO members on Turkey to drop its veto of the invitation. The invitation arose through a new NATO partnership policy beginning in 2014 but Turkey vetoed the invitation until 2016.
Behind the scenes negotiations between Turkey and Israel in 2015 warmed the chilly relationship that had been essentially severed between the countries in 2010 over Israeli commandos killing 10 Turkish activists and wounding over 50 participants on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship bound for Gaza as a part of the 7-ship Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
According to NATO documents, NATO and Israel have worked together for almost 30 years, cooperating in science and technology, counter terrorism, civil preparedness, countering weapons of mass destruction and women, peace and security. To strengthen NATO naval interoperability NATO brought on Israel as a partner for NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian. Israel’s military medical academy now serves as a “unique asset” for NATO’s Partnership Training and Education Centers community.
Israel is not officially integrated in NATO but is part of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a program sponsored by NATO in cooperation with seven countries of the Mediterranean.
Only 4 of 32 NATO Members do NOT Sell Weapons to Israel or Buy Weapons from Israel
NATO’s long-standing working relationship with Israel has translated into NATO countries selling weapons to Israel and other countries buying weapons from Israel’s big weapons industry.
With the exception of Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium, the remainder of the 32 NATO members continue to sell/send weapons to Israel as Israel conducts genocide operations on Palestinians in Gaza. Due to a court case, Denmark may suspend export of F-35 fighter jet parts to the U.S., because the U.S. sells the jets to Israel.
Even Latvia sold weapons to Israel, while Lithuania bought weapons from Israel. Greece, Albania, Slovakia, and many other NATO countries have purchased military equipment from Israel.
The Action on Armed Violence has a comprehensive worldwide listing of weapons sales and transfers to Israel.
The US is the mammoth supplier to Israel, providing an estimated 68% of Israel’s foreign-sourced weapons.
Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 BILLION dollars in economic and military assistance. Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has passed legislation that has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which included $3.8 billion from legislation in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriation in April 2024.
Since October 7, only two of the more than one hundred military aid transfers to Israel have reportedly met the congressional review threshold of $250 million to be made public, and since the records for the other weapons transfers have not been made public, we can’t be sure . Additionally, the Israeli military received expedited deliveries of weapons from a strategic stockpile of weapons that is normally used to replenishment weapons for U.S. units in the Middle East. The U.S. has maintained massive warehouses for the stockpile of huge variety and amount of weapons since the 1980s…………………. https://www.laprogressive.com/foreign-policy/relentless-genocide—
China Stops Arms Control Talks With the US Over Arms Sales to Taiwan
The Chinese Foreign Ministry says the US continues to do things that go against Beijing’s ‘core interests’
Anti War, by Dave DeCamp, JULY 18, 2024
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Beijing had stopped arms control talks with the US over continued US arms sales to Taiwan and other steps that go against China’s “core interests.”
The US and China held consultations on arms control back in November 2023. A reporter asked Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian about comments from US officials suggesting China declined to hold another round.
“Over the past weeks and months, despite China’s firm opposition and repeated protest, the US has continued to sell arms to Taiwan and done things that severely undermine China’s core interests and the mutual trust between China and the US. This has seriously compromised the political atmosphere for continuing the arms control consultations,” Lin said.
“Consequently, the Chinese side has decided to hold off discussion with the US on a new round of consultations on arms control and non-proliferation. The responsibility fully lies with the US,” the spokesman added………………………………………………………more https://news.antiwar.com/2024/07/17/china-stops-arms-control-talks-with-the-us-over-arms-sales-to-taiwan/
Israel using water as weapon of war as Gaza supply plummets by 94%, creating deadly health catastrophe: Oxfam
A new Oxfam report reveals how Israel has been systematically weaponizing water against Palestinians in Gaza, showing disregard for human life and international law.
July 18, 2024, by: The AIM Network,
https://theaimn.com/israel-using-water-as-weapon-of-war-as-gaza-supply-plummets-by-94-creating-deadly-health-catastrophe-oxfam/
A new Oxfam report reveals how Israel has been systematically weaponizing water against Palestinians in Gaza, showing disregard for human life and international law.
The report, Water War Crimes, finds that Israel’s cutting of external water supply, systematic destruction of water facilities and deliberate aid obstruction have reduced the amount of water available in Gaza by 94% to 4.74 litres a day per person – just under a third of the recommended minimum in emergencies and less than a single toilet flush.
Oxfam analysis also found:
- Israeli military attacks have damaged or destroyed five water and sanitation infrastructure sites every three days since the start of the war.
- The destruction of water and electricity infrastructure and restrictions on entry of spare parts and fuel (on average a fifth of the required amount is allowed in) saw water production drop by 84% in Gaza. External supply from Israel’s national water company Mekorot fell by 78%.
Israel has destroyed 70% of all sewage pumps and 100% of all wastewater treatment plants, as well as the main water quality testing laboratories in Gaza, and restricted the entry of Oxfam water testing equipment.- Gaza City has lost nearly all its water production capacity, with 88% of its water wells and 100% of its desalination plants damaged or destroyed.
The report also highlighted the dire impact of this extreme lack of clean water and sanitation on Palestinians’ health, with more than a quarter (26%) of Gaza’s population falling severely ill from easily preventable diseases.
In January, the International Court of Justice demanded that Israel immediately improve humanitarian access in light of a plausible genocide in Gaza. Since then, Oxfam has witnessed firsthand Israel’s obstruction of a meaningful humanitarian response, which is killing Palestinian civilians.
Oxfam Water and Sanitation Specialist Lama Abdul Samad said it was clear that Israel had created a devastating humanitarian emergency resulting in Palestinian civilian deaths.
“We’ve already seen Israel’s use of collective punishment and its use of starvation as a weapon of war. Now we are witnessing its weaponizing of water, which is already having deadly consequences.
“But the deliberate restriction of access to water is not a new tactic. The Israeli Government has been depriving Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza of safe and sufficient water for many years,” she said.
“The widespread destruction and significant restrictions on aid delivery in Gaza impacting access to water and other essentials for survival, underscores the urgent need for the international community to take decisive action to prevent further suffering by upholding justice and human rights, including those enshrined in the Geneva and Genocide Conventions.”
Monther Shoblak, General Manager of the Gaza Strip’s water utility CMWU, said:
“My colleagues and I have been living through a nightmare these past nine months, but we still feel it’s our responsibility and duty to ensure everybody in Gaza is getting their minimum right of clean drinking water. It’s been very difficult, but we are determined to keep trying – even when we witness our colleagues being targeted and killed by Israel while undertaking their work.”
Oxfam is calling for urgent action including an immediate and permanent ceasefire; for Israel to allow a full and unfettered humanitarian response; and for Israel to foot the reconstruction bill for water and sanitation infrastructure.
Nuclear-weapon states are disregarding political commitments accepted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
Nuclear-weapon states (NWS) are disregarding political commitments accepted
under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to “further diminish the
role and significance of nuclear weapons in all military and security
concepts, doctrines and policies” and increasing nuclear risks by
boosting the salience of nuclear weapons.
The NPT is inclusive, nearly
universal, and connects the disarmament and non-proliferation dimensions of
the global nuclear order. These factors make it a good place to address
nuclear weapons salience. In a polarised international environment, the NPT
can also link up other contexts where nuclear weapons are discussed. The
ambition of efforts to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons will depend
on the overall trajectory of international politics. But the growing role
and significance of nuclear weapons is both the result and a driver of
rivalry between the NWS.
European Leadership Network 16th July 2024
Testimonies from the Mawasi massacre: 90 people buried in the sand
“I saw before my eyes one missile after another descending next to the tents. Missiles I have never seen in my life in all of Gaza’s wars. Isn’t this internationally forbidden? Shouldn’t the civilian population be protected and not face genocide and mass killing? Isn’t this forbidden?”
The Israeli army committed another massacre against displaced Palestinians in tent encampments, this time in the coastal Mawasi area, which Israel had designated as a “safe zone.”
BY TAREQ S. HAJJAJ , https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/testimonies-from-the-mawasi-massacre-90-people-buried-in-the-sand/
In a crater in the ground almost larger than a schoolyard, a group of young men dig through the sand and pull out the bodies.
“His head is there! His head is there!” someone yells. A man emerges from the hole, carrying a child.
“Who knows who this child is? Who knows his family? Where are his parents?” he calls out.
Behind him are dead bodies and severed limbs scattered across the ground. Some poke out from beneath the sand, half-buried.
When the Israeli army struck the coastal displacement camp in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, there was no rubble. The Israeli-designated “safe zone” was little more than a sea of tents on the beach, so people were buried in the sand instead.
At 10 a.m. on Saturday, while people were starting their day, the Israeli military targeted the area with successive airstrikes, leading to a massacre that, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, has, as of the time of writing, killed 90 people and injured over 300 others. Half of them are women and children, the health ministry says.
Shaima Farwaneh, 16, was near the site of the massacre when it happened. She was preparing to make breakfast for her family when the bombs fell.
People and sand scattered everywhere, limbs that were once attached to bodies flying over their heads.
“A leg hit me, and I saw dismembered bodies a few meters away,” Shaima told Mondoweiss. “I saw a young child screaming. He lost his lower limbs and was crawling on his hands and screaming. The bombs didn’t stop, and suddenly the boy disappeared. I saw how he vanished before me while we ran and lowered our eyes to the ground, unable to do anything but run.”
Shaima describes hearing seven explosions in short succession before it was over. “What a life we live in these tents that we have to see the dismembered bodies of our siblings and families fly over our heads.”
When the ambulance and Civil Defense crews arrived near a well-known crowded market for residents of the area, their vehicles were targeted as well, according to the director of the Civil Defense in Khan Younis, Yamen Abu Suleiman. Two Civil Defense workers were killed in the strike.
Abu Suleiman said that the occupation targeted Al-Mawasi with a large barrage of missiles, which led to many casualties. “The occupation targeted the area more than once to prevent us from any rescue operation,” he tells Mondoweiss, denouncing the silence of the International Committee of the Red Cross over Israel’s prevention of rescue teams from doing their work.
Israel claims that the airstrikes were an attempt to assassinate Muhammad al-Deif, the head of the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, as well as the commander of al-Qassam’s Khan Younis District Brigade, Rafi Salama. The Gaza government media office denies the Israeli claims, emphasizing that they are nothing but a way of diverting the world’s attention from the reality of the massacre the Israeli army committed as part of the genocide of Gaza’s people.
According to local sources, over 80,000 displaced people currently reside in tents in that area.
‘No state does this’
Fawzia Sheikh Youssef, 82, was buried in the sand from the bombing but survived. She describes what she experienced during the massacre as something she had never seen in her entire life. She tells Mondoweiss that she was already displaced during the Nakba of 1948 when she was only 6 years old, coming to the Khan Younis area and staying with her family for two years in a tent. 76 years later, she found herself back where she started, but this time witnessing massacres the likes of which she had never seen even during the Nakba.
“There is no country in all the world that does this to children, women, and civilians,” she says. “This isn’t how wars are.”
Fawzia was eating her breakfast when the bomb ripped through her encampment, demolishing her tent and trapping her underneath it. She found herself covered in sand and trapped inside but was not critically injured. She began crawling on the ground and extricated herself from beneath the tent, eventually escaping to a place far away from the shrapnel and missiles, closer to the main road.
“I saw before my eyes one missile after another descending next to the tents. Missiles I have never seen in my life in all of Gaza’s wars. Isn’t this internationally forbidden? Shouldn’t the civilian population be protected and not face genocide and mass killing? Isn’t this forbidden?”
“They killed young people and old women. They do not respect humans. Aren’t we human?” she continues. “There is nothing to protect us from these missiles. The tents fell on our heads, and I was hit with two pieces of shrapnel in my leg. I may get poisoned, and I did not harm anyone.”
“These are not humanitarian actions,” Fawzia says. “A normal state would know that children have value, and women have value. Their lives are respected. Killing them is forbidden. There are wars. Some countries fight in the world, but not like this. Not like what happens with us.”
‘I left my son and fled from the horror of the bombing’
Samah al-Farra, a survivor of the massacre, says she fled from the horror of the missiles, leaving her son behind without knowing what she was doing. She describes what she saw after the incident as witnessing the horrors of the Day of Resurrection. The sound of the explosions, the panic of the people around her, the stampede in the attempt to escape, women leaving their tents without even wearing their clothes — Samah has to live with witnessing all these brutal scenes.
“People were running. There was sand in our eyes and fire over our heads. I left my son behind me and started running. I found the world turned upside down. The bodies of the martyrs were next to us, cut into pieces. It was a massacre. The fragments, sand, and bodies flew over our heads as we ran,” Samah describes.
She says that if this density of missiles had fallen on fortified buildings, it would have destroyed them. “But what about when they fall on tents whose owners are protected only by a piece of cloth?”
She describes the scene as a shower of missiles falling four times in a row, with more than one explosion occurring during each shower. “We saved ourselves. If we had stayed where we were, we would have been cut up and buried under the sand.”
Media reports have said that the bombs used in the al-Mawasi attack were JDAMs made in the U.S., which turn highly destructive unguided bombs into more precise missiles.
‘The entire area was overturned‘
Aziza Abu Tahir sits in front of the devastation after the bombing. Scattered bags of flour, gallons of water, vegetables, pillowcases, and utensils litter the area. She owns an oven and sits beside it every day. The women of the camp send their dough to her to bake for a small fee.
“When they dropped the bombs above our heads, all the people were running and screaming and saying that these were incendiary bombs, and this is the first time we have heard a sound like this,” Aziza tells Mondoweiss. “We ran away, and no one knew where to run. Some people went from one direction and were bombed, and some of them went from another direction and survived. But no one knew where they were going.”
As she speaks, a small child is hugging her, the son of her neighbor. Aziza says his mother takes care of orphans, and explains that when the attack started, his mother was bringing some dough for Aziza to bake in order to then resell to get an income for her family. “She was just here, and I baked what she wanted, and she went to sell it. As soon as she walked away, the bombing started. I don’t know where she is now, and I don’t know if she will return. The entire area she was walking in was overturned, and everything was buried.”
Hassan Suleih conducted interviews and provided photography for this report.
US Ally South Korea Threatens Nuclear-Armed North Korea With Regime Destruction
https://www.newsweek.com/south-north-korea-nuclear-weapons-regime-destruction-1925096, Jul 15, 2024
South Korea said Kim Jong Un‘s regime in the North faces a certain end if it uses nuclear weapons, a strongly worded statement that came after Pyongyang blasted Seoul and Washington for opening the door to further nuclear force deployments to the peninsula.
“If North Korea attempts to use nuclear weapons, the overwhelming response of the South Korea-U.S. alliance will bring about the end of the North Korean regime,” the Defense Ministry in Seoul said on Sunday.
“There is no scenario in which the North Korean regime will survive after using nuclear weapons,” the ministry added.
Kim’s government has stepped up its ballistic missile tests despite existing prohibitions backed by the U.N. Security Council. Amid spiraling tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang has threatened to launch a preemptive nuclear strike to defend its territory from what it claims is an impending invasion.
In Washington, D.C., last week, President Joe Biden met South Korean counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol and recommitted “the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear,” to the defense of the longtime U.S. treaty ally.
In a joint statement issued later the same day, the U.S. Defense Department and South Korean Defense Ministry announced the signing of “Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula.” This is a move to further integrate U.S. nuclear assets with South Korea’s conventional forces in defense of the alliance.
On Saturday, the North Korean Defense Ministry warned the United States and the South—”hostile states“—that they would “pay an unimaginably harsh price” for increased nuclear cooperation.
The allies were “betraying their sinister intention to step up their preparations for a nuclear war against the DPRK,” read the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.
“We come to the conclusion that there is only one option for us to take against such confrontational fanatics,” the ministry said, noting the urgent requirement “to further improve its nuclear deterrent readiness and add important elements to the composition of the deterrent.”
South Korea’s Defense Ministry described the new guidelines as “a legitimate measure,” justified by North Korea’s continued development of nuclear-capable missiles.
The forceful language against Kim was first used by Biden last year during a state visit by Yoon.
“A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies or partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime, were it to take such an action,” Biden said.
North Korea’s embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
The new guidelines governing when and how American nuclear forces might be deployed and used on the Korean Peninsula were crafted by the U.S.-ROK Nuclear Consultative Group, established after Yoon’s visit to the White House. ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea’s official name.
South Korea, which has no nuclear weapons, says the contents of the guidelines are confidential.
Analysts say Washington aims to boost the credibility of what it calls “extended deterrence,” the ability of the U.S. military to deter adversaries and reassure allies, particularly with its nuclear arms.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is estimated to have around 50 nuclear warheads in its stockpile, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
In SIPRI’s annual yearbook released last month, the think tank’s experts described North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as “active but highly opaque.”
“Based on statements by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and North Korea’s expanding force posture, it seems likely that North Korea intends to increase its nuclear warhead inventory significantly,” the experts said.
North Korean nuclear weapons, 2024
Bulletin By Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight | July 15, 2024
North Korea continues to modernize and grow its nuclear weapons arsenal. In this Nuclear Notebook, the authors cautiously estimate that North Korea may have produced enough fissile material to hypothetically build up to 90 nuclear warheads, but has likely assembled fewer than that—potentially around 50. To deliver the warheads, North Korea is enhancing and diversifying its missile force, most recently with new solid-fuel long-range strategic missiles, short-range tactical missiles, and sea-based missiles. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: director Hans M. Kristensen, associate director Matt Korda, research associate Eliana Johns, and program associate Mackenzie Knight.
This article is freely available in PDF format in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ digital magazine (published by Taylor & Francis) at this link.
North Korea—also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK—has made significant advances over the past two decades in developing its nuclear weapons arsenal. Since 2006, North Korea has detonated six nuclear devices, updated its nuclear doctrine to reflect the irreversible role of nuclear weapons for its national security, and continued to introduce a variety of new missiles test-flown from new launch platforms.
It is widely assumed that North Korea has operational nuclear warheads for its short- and medium-range missiles as well as possibly for its longer-range missiles, although the latter capability has not yet been publicly demonstrated. There is considerable uncertainty about which of North Korea’s missiles have been fielded with an active operational nuclear capability. However, it seems clearer from North Korea’s public statements and systems-testing that the country intends to field an operational nuclear arsenal capable of holding targets at risk in East Asia, the United States, and Europe.
In 2021, Kim Jong-un announced several key strategic goals for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, proposed as a five-year plan. According to Kim’s statement, these goals included: 1) producing “super-sized nuclear warheads,” 2) producing smaller and lighter nuclear weapons for tactical uses, 3) improving precision strike and range capabilities, 4) introducing “hypersonic gliding flight warheads,” 5) developing “solid-fuel engine propelled intercontinental, underwater, and ground ballistic rockets,” and 6) introducing a “nuclear-powered submarine and underwater-launch nuclear strategic weapon” (KCNA 2021). North Korea appears to have made significant progress on these goals, and has since introduced more demands including the dramatic increase of missile production and “cutting edge strategic weapon engines” (Kim 2023).
Due to the lack of clarity surrounding North Korea’s nuclear program, agencies and officials of the US intelligence community, as well as military commanders and independent experts, struggle to assess the program’s characteristics and capabilities………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
North Korea’s nuclear policy
For decades, North Korea has made numerous statements and signals about its nuclear weapons policy, laying out its nuclear doctrine if deterrence fails. Such statements have more recently been codified in official declaratory policy. In 2013, for example, North Korea’s “Law on Consolidating the Position of Nuclear Weapons State” suggested a no-first-use policy, noting that North Korea’s nuclear arsenal would only be used “to repel invasion or attack from a hostile nuclear weapons state and make retaliatory strikes” (KCNA 2013). Kim Jong-un officially declared a no-first-use policy in 2016 following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test.
Since 2016, however, North Korean statements and force posture changes have indicated a shift away from this no-first-use policy. Just two months after the policy was declared, the North Korean government issued a statement that North Korea would not be the first to use nuclear weapons “as long as the hostile forces for aggression do not encroach upon its sovereignty” (KCNA 2016b). In 2020, Kim Jong-un stated that North Korea’s nuclear deterrent “will never be used preemptively. But if […] any forces infringe upon the security of our state and attempt to have recourse to military force against us, I will enlist all our most powerful offensive strength in advance to punish them” (38 North 2020). Such caveats culminated in September 2022 when North Korea’s parliament codified in law North Korea’s right to launch nuclear weapons preemptively (Kim 2022). One year later, the North Korean government codified under the country’s constitution its right to “deter war and protect regional and global peace by rapidly developing nuclear weapons to a higher level” (Soo-Yeon 2023).
The abandonment of North Korea’s no-first-use policy coincides with the country’s recent efforts to develop tactical nuclear weapons. Following development and demonstration of new long-range strategic nuclear-capable missiles, the pursuit of tactical nuclear weapons appears intended to provide options for nuclear use below the strategic level and strengthen its regional deterrence posture (KCNA 2022; National Committee on North Korea 2021). According to two analysts, Pyongyang now sees its nuclear weapons as useful not only for retaliation against an attack but also for potentially winning a limited conflict………………
………………….. Occasionally, North Korea has explicitly mentioned or signaled which targets it would hit with its nuclear weapons. These include US military bases in South Korea, the Asia-Pacific region, Guam, Hawaii, and the continental United States.
………………………………………………………………….. despite occasional inflammatory statements, it appears highly likely that North Korea—as with other nuclear-armed states—would use its nuclear weapons only under extreme circumstances, particularly if the continued existence of the North Korean state and its political leadership were threatened.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons program
Plutonium production operations
The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, located in North Pyongan province, has been called the “beating heart” of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. At Yongbyon, North Korea produces plutonium at its five megawatt-electric (MWe) graphite-moderated nuclear reactor, which has been operating intermittently since 1986………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Uranium enrichment operations
Assessing the state of North Korea’s uranium enrichment operations is more difficult because the operational history and locations of several associated uranium enrichment facilities are unknown………………………………………………………………
Fissile material and warhead inventory estimates
Because of the prior access to the facilities at Yongbyon, analysts have a reasonable understanding of North Korea’s plutonium production capabilities. However, given the uncertainties about the operations at Yongbyon’s uranium enrichment facility and the possible existence of a second centrifuge facility, it is unclear how much highly-enriched uranium (HEU) North Korea has produced and how much uranium it might divert to military purposes, including for plutonium production. Still, this amount is known to be growing and it is clear North Korea is investing in the improvement of its fissile material production capabilities………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The size of North Korea’s nuclear stockpile also depends on the weapon design and the number and types of launchers that can deliver them. Many experts also estimate that North Korea may have built a smaller number of nuclear weapons than what its stockpile of fissile material may suggest………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Nuclear testing and weaponization
After six nuclear tests—including two with moderate yields and one with a high yield—there is no longer any doubt that North Korea can build powerful nuclear explosive devices designed for different yields. North Korea’s latest nuclear test, conducted on September 3, 2017, had a yield of well over 100 kilotons and demonstrated that North Korea had managed to design a thermonuclear device or at least one that used a mixed-fuel (composite) design………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Potential land-based nuclear-capable missiles
Over the past decade, North Korea has developed a highly diverse ballistic missile force, including missiles in all major range categories…………………………………………………………………………………………
Short-range missiles…………………………………………………………………………………
Medium- and intermediate-range missiles North Korea is developing a new generation of medium- and intermediate-range missiles with improved accuracy, readiness, and maneuverability…………………………………………………………………
Intercontinental ballistic missiles
The most dramatic of North Korea’s recent developments has been the display and test launch of large intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs),…………………………………………………
Sea-based nuclear-capable missiles
Over the past decade, North Korea has worked to develop an increasingly sophisticated sea-based nuclear deterrent. ……………………………………………………………………..
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles……………………………………………
Submarine-launched cruise missiles North Korea is developing a new submarine-launched cruise missile, known as Pulhwasal-3-31. The system has been labeled a “strategic cruise missile”—implying a nuclear-capable status……………………………………………………
Other sea-based weapons North Korea appears to be developing an underwater weapon system………………………………………..
Land-attack cruise missiles North Korea appears to be developing a series of land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs)—………………………………………………… more https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-07/north-korean-nuclear-weapons-2024/
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