Israel strikes Iran military targets amid fears of a wider war
The Age, October 26, 2024
Israel said it struck military sites in Iran early on Saturday in retaliation for Tehran’s attacks on Israel earlier this month, the latest step in the escalating conflict between the heavily armed rivals.
Iranian media reported multiple explosions over several hours in the capital and at nearby military bases, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
Before dawn, Israel’s public broadcaster said three waves of strikes had been completed and that the operation was over.
The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel’s retaliation for a ballistic-missile barrage carried out by Iran on October 1, in which around 200 missiles were fired at Israel and one person was killed in the West Bank.
Tensions between arch-rivals Israel and Iran have escalated since Hamas, the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group based in Gaza, attacked Israel on October 7 last year. Hamas has been supported by Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants, also backed by Iran.
Fears that Iran and the United States would be drawn into a regional war have risen with Israel’s intensifying assault on Hezbollah since last month, including airstrikes on the Lebanese capital Beirut and a ground operation, as well as its year-old conflict in the Gaza Strip………………………………………………………….
US President Joe Biden had warned that Washington, Israel’s main backer and supplier of arms, would not support a strike on Tehran’s nuclear sites and has said Israel should consider alternatives to attacking Iran’s oil fields.
Iranian authorities have repeatedly warned Israel against any attack.
“Iran reserves the right to respond to any aggression, and there is no doubt that Israel will face a proportional reaction for any action it takes,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency said on Saturday, quoting sources…………………………………………..
Videos carried by Iranian media showed air defences continuously firing at apparently incoming projectiles in central Tehran, without saying which sites were coming under attack.
The semi-official Iranian Fars news agency said several military bases in the west and southwest of Tehran had also been targeted…………………………………………………………………….
US informed ahead of strikes
……………………………..The US was notified by Israel ahead of its strikes on targets in Iran but was not involved in the operation, another US official told Reuters.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in the Middle East for another attempt to broker a peace deal, said on Wednesday that Israel’s retaliation should not lead to greater escalation.
Even as it sought to convince Israel to calibrate its strikes, the US moved to reassure its closest ally in the Middle East that it would aid in its defence should Tehran decide to stage a counter-attack.
This included Biden’s decision to move the US military’s THAAD anti-missile defences to Israel, along with about 100 US soldiers to operate them. …………………………….. more https://www.theage.com.au/world/middle-east/israel-raids-gaza-hospital-strike-on-a-home-kills-13-children-20241026-p5kli5.html
Let’s talk about…Mainstream Media (MSM) Coverage of Israeli War Crimes
Truth is irrelevant, narrative is all. That’s how the media works.
Kit Knightly, Off-Guardian Thu, 24 Oct 2024 https://www.sott.net/article/495700-Lets-talk-about-MSM-coverage-of-Israeli-War-Crimes
Two weeks ago, it was widely reported across all the Western legacy media that Israel had fire-bombed a hospital leaving patients to burn to death in their beds.
A few days later, we were told by the same Western legacy media that Israeli strikes inside Lebanon had destroyed a 2000-year-old village.
Today, CNN’s front page hosts an IDF soldier describing Israel’s practice of using civilians as human shields in Gaza, while the Guardian details an Israeli strike on school-turned-bomb shelter in Gaza.
Now, it’s not at all unusual that Israel should be committing war crimes, they’ve been doing so unchecked for decades.
But what is less usual is seeing these war crimes appearing on front pages and in headlines in the controlled media.
We’ve all been doing this long to have dispelled any idea the MSM cares about truth.
They don’t care about truth. Not at all. In fact these days their internal structures barely permit them to recognize truth as a concept.
Nothing – nothing – is so true the media have to report it, no crimes are so brutal they can’t be ignored.
Case in point, in Odessa in 2014 civilians protesting the NATO-backed coup in Ukraine were chased inside the Trade Union building by pro-coup neo-Nazis.
The building was barricaded and set on fire. People climbing out of the windows to escape the flames were shot at.
Forty people died, shot or burned to death. The neo-Nazis responsible celebrated by showing pictures of beetles being set alight (their disparaging term for ethnic Russians was “Colorado beetles” in reference to the orange and black ribbon of St George they wore).
How did the legacy media respond to this murder?
Well, they just lied.
They claimed the protesters set the fire by accident when they were throwing Molotov cocktails off the roof. This was a complete fabrication, contradicted by CCTV evidence, blaming the victims and covering for the fascists, but so what? They media didn’t care, they just kept repeating the lie and are still doing so today
Truth is irrelevant, narrative is all. That’s how the media works.
They’ve done the same in the past for Israel , the US, Saudi Arabia, NATO…whoever…countless times over the years.
And yet here we are, in 2024, with these Israeli crimes all over the controlled news.
They could lie if they wanted, as they usually do.
But they aren’t.
It prompts the eternal question: “Why this? Why now?”
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Israel Continues Its War On Journalism
Caitlin Johnstone, 24 Oct 24, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-continues-its-war-on-journalism?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=150646353&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
An Israeli airstrike destroyed the press office of the Lebanese news broadcaster Al Mayadeen on Wednesday night, continuing Israel’s historically unprecedented military assault on the press.
Also in continuation of Israel’s war on journalism, the IDF has published the names of six Al Jazeera reporters who it claims are actually members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, citing as evidence documents which it claims Israeli forces found in Gaza. These allegations would mark these journalists as legitimate military targets.
Al Jazeera has denounced these claims as unfounded, saying in a statement, “The Network views these fabricated accusations as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”
There is of course no reason to ever believe any claim Israel makes about anything whatsoever absent mountains of independently verifiable evidence, after the mountains of lies it has churned out over the last year. The fact that western news outlets are treating these allegations as plausible is evidence of their propagandistic nature.
Israel claims everyone it wants to kill is Hamas. The journalists are Hamas, the hospitals are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the aid trucks are Hamas, the schools are Hamas, the mosques are Hamas, the water infrastructure is Hamas, the civilian homes are all Hamas, and Hamas is hiding behind every woman and child in Gaza. The only exception to this rule is in Lebanon, in which case everyone Israel wants to kill is Hezbollah.
Israel hates truth, which is why it kills journalists at every opportunity and blocks them from entering Gaza. This is because truth tends to have a marked anti-Israel bias.
We saw this illustrated recently when Israel announced that there’s a secret Hezbollah bunker underneath a hospital in Beirut, so the press simply sent a bunch of reporters to go investigate because Israel can’t block the press from entering Lebanon like it can in Gaza. Even western outlets like the BBC and Sky News entered the hospital and interviewed medical staff, reporting that they found no trace of evidence supporting Israel’s claims and that the hospital staff all denied the existence of any Hezbollah bunker on the premises. And you may be sure those outlets would have eagerly reported any sign of Hezbollah if they were given the opportunity.
Criminal institutions need to function in the dark. They cannot function in the light of visibility and critical journalism and inconvenient video footage. That’s why the mafia murders witnesses. That’s why the inner workings of the US war machine are shrouded in government secrecy. That’s why Julian Assange spent five years in a maximum security prison. And that’s why Israel does everything it can to kill and obstruct journalists who tell the truth about its crimes.
US authorizes CIA mercenaries to run biometric concentration camps in Gaza Strip
A private intelligence corporation billed as “Uber for war zones” is preparing to create what Israel hopes will be the model for supplanting Hamas rule in Gaza.
Uncaptured Media, Dan Cohen, Oct 22, 2024
The Biden administration has approved the deployment of 1,000 CIA-trained private mercenaries as part of a joint U.S.-Israeli plan to turn Gaza’s apocalyptic rubblescape into a high-tech dystopia.
Starting with Al-Atatra, a village in the northwestern Gaza Strip, the plan calls to build what the Israeli daily Ynet calls “humanitarian bubbles” – turning the remains of villages and neighborhoods into tiny concentration camps cut off from their environs and surrounded and controlled by mercenaries.
This comes as Israel carries out daily massacres and ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, enacting the proposal known as The Generals’ Plan, originally crafted by former national security chief Giora Eiland to turn Gaza into “a place where no human being can exist.”
The plan, approved by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, calls for the Israeli military to clear out pockets of Palestinian resistance, which it has failed to achieve, demonstrated by the recent killing of Israeli Colonel Ehasn Daksa, the highest ranking officer to lose his life in the year long war.
48 hours after stamping out resistance, they plan to erect separation walls around the neighborhood, forcing its residents, and no one else, to enter and exit using biometric identification under the CIA contractors’ control. Those who do not accept the biometric regime would be refused humanitarian aid…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://open.substack.com/pub/uncaptured/p/us-authorizes-cia-mercenaries-to
When The Holocaust Returned It Came Denouncing Anti-Semitism And Wearing A Star Of David
People assume what’s happening in Gaza can’t be an actual genocide, because the news media keep assuring everyone that’s not what we’re looking at, and so do the politicians in both parties.
“This can’t possibly be what it looks like,” people say. “If it was, we would have heard about it in the news.”
Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 23, 2024
It was never going to look how we were expecting. It wasn’t going to show up in its old familiar costume with the bent cross and the tiny mustache, blaming all the problems on the Jews.
It had to look different. If it didn’t look different, we never would have let it in the door.
And that’s still what’s throwing a lot of people off: it looks different. It doesn’t look like what all all the World War II movies and Holocaust novels conditioned us to watch out for. In fact, it looks so different that the victims in the last story have the same religion as the antagonists in the new one.
That old aphorism “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” is true because people don’t tend to make the exact same mistake in the same way twice, but the conditioning which led them to make the first mistake will often lead them to make a second similar one.
We’ve all been made far too familiar with the Nazi extermination program to ever consent to Jews being rounded up and loaded onto trains again, but we also didn’t purge from our civilization all the murderousness, hatred and tyranny which made it possible. That’s why this new Holocaust has been allowed to happen.
We’ve all been conditioned to watch out for the next Hitler, but there’s never going to be another Hitler. We’ve been so focused on looking out for the Hitler who never comes that many of us missed when we started singing verses that rhyme with the ones we were hearing in Germany eight decades ago.
People assume what’s happening in Gaza can’t be an actual genocide, because the news media keep assuring everyone that’s not what we’re looking at, and so do the politicians in both parties.
“This can’t possibly be what it looks like,” people say. “If it was, we would have heard about it in the news.”
The villains in this new story don’t look like the villains in the old story, and, if you are a properly indoctrinated westerner, they might not look like villains at all. They might just look like Jews defending themselves from terrorists and western governments rightly defending their dear ally — which is exactly what they should do if they want to prevent another Holocaust!
But it’s that very misperception which is making today’s Holocaust possible. This mass atrocity is being tolerated by huge parts of the population exactly because we see it as intolerable for large numbers of Jews to be killed by those who hate them, not understanding that the people who were killed on October 7 were killed not because of their religion, but because they were part of a settler-colonialist project which is premised on the perpetual abuse of a preexisting indigenous population.
People defend Israel’s actions on the grounds that Israel has reasons for doing things the way it’s doing them. They have to bomb Gaza — they suffered an unprovoked attack from a bunch of evil terrorists. They have to bomb all the hospitals and schools and mosques — that’s where Hamas are hiding. They have to bomb areas that are packed full of children — Hamas are using those children as human shields.
But those who commit mass atrocities always justify their actions. They always have reasons for doing them. They always frame it as a necessary act of self-preservation.
That was always what the next Holocaust was going to look like. It was never going to feature new bad guys who cackle and twist their mustaches saying “Haha, we are evil! Let’s kill a bunch of people because we are evil!” They were always going to frame themselves as the heroes and victims, and the other side as the villains and victimizers. They were always going to offer a bunch of reasons why what they’re doing is actually good and righteous, even though it looks evil on its face.
If we are to prevent genocidal atrocities, we need to be able to recognize what’s happening in real time, and we can’t do that if we’re expecting them to show up in familiar and instantly recognizable packaging. We need to be able to see through the manipulations and justifications in the here and now so we can stop it in its tracks instead of waiting for history to judge it in our rearview mirror after it’s already happened.
This is important to recognize when it comes to saving Gaza, and it’s important to recognize when it comes to preventing the Holocausts of the future as well. They will never look identical to the Holocausts of the past. Their form will be unprecedented, and they will have different justifications for their orchestration. But they will rhyme. And we need to be able to pick up on that as it happens.
The Gazafication of Lebanon: Israel Blows up Nabatieh City Hall, kills Mayor and Aid Workers
Juan Cole, 10/17/2024
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli military has begun giving southern Lebanon the Gaza treatment. Some 25% of Lebanese are under “evacuation orders,” which is to say that Israel is expelling them from their homes in preparation for further military operations against the Hezbollah Party-Militia.
The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, Imran Riza, said Wednesday, “Health care facilities, mosques, historical markets, residential complexes, and now government buildings are being reduced to rubble. Displaced families continue to feel at risk, even after fleeing to safe areas.”
Lebanon is a small country of perhaps 4 million citizens and nearly 2 million refugees. The UN says that some 1.2 million people have been displaced, with 275,000 people leaving for Syria. This latter number includes both Lebanese leaving their own country and Syrian refugees in Lebanon returning to the Baathist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. The equivalent of such a vast displacement of residents in the United States would be 51 million internal refugees. It is unimaginable.
We saw this movie in Gaza. It is total war.
Even the humanitarian aid workers attempting to help people get through the violence and displacement are being targeted by the Israeli military. Humanitarian Coordinator Riza added, “This morning a devastating attack claimed the lives of yet more civilians and local authorities working to provide relief, with the strike occurring just as a crisis meeting was convening at the municipality of Nabatieh in South Lebanon. I deplore and mourn the deaths of Ahmad, Sadeq, Mohammed, Qassem – members of a relief team with whom the UN and humanitarian partners have been working for more than a year – and all other victims of this conflict that must stop, urgently.”
The attack referenced by the UN official was an Israeli airstrike on the City Hall of the Lebanese city of Nabatieh, which is a civilian object, not a military one. The Israelis killed the mayor, Ahmed Kaheel, council member Sadeq Ismail, photographer Mohammad Baytar, and employees Qasem Hijazi and Mohammad Zohri. Sadeq Ismail and Qasem Hijazi, along with Mayor Kaheel, were the humanitarian relief team to which the UN official referred to above. The Lebanese Ministry of Health (and no, it isn’t “Hezbollah controlled”) said that the strike killed 16 persons in total and wounded 52.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Miqati condemned the bombing, noting that the city council had been meeting about humanitarian aid issues before they were blasted to smithereens……………………………….
Nabatieh is majority Shiite Muslim, and Israel’s targeting of its municipal building may be a manifestation of the increasing hatred of Shiites visible in Israeli social media, which sometimes sound like Sunni extremists such as ISIL. The city, however, also has substantial Maronite Christian and Eastern Orthodox Christian communities and many churches and mosques………………….https://www.juancole.com/2024/10/gazafication-lebanon-nabatieh.html
Leaked US Intelligence Documents Outline Israeli Preparations to Strike Iran
Reportedly, the leak comes courtesy of a US intelligence source
by Connor Freeman October 19, 2024 https://news.antiwar.com/2024/10/19/leaked-us-intelligence-documents-outline-israeli-preparations-to-strike-iran/#gsc.tab=0
Leaked top secret documents from the Pentagon and the National Security Agency (NSA) outline Israeli preparations for a major attack against Iran, CNN reported on Saturday. The documents were published Friday on a Telegram channel, said to be affiliated with Iran, named “Middle East Spectator” that claims it received the information from a source within a US intelligence agency.
Besides the US, these documents, dated October 15 and 16, were only meant to be viewed by officials in Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, Washington’s “Five Eyes” allies. CNN cites “three people familiar with the matter,” including one that confirmed the documents’ authenticity. The documents can be viewed here and here.
The documents, including a visual intelligence report from the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, details ongoing activities being carried out in anticipation of the attack in Iran at Israeli Air Force (IAF) bases.
The US has observed, “IAF exercises using air-launched ballistic missiles (ALBMs), air-to-surface ballistic missiles, fighter jets, UAVs, and refueling tankers previously used during Israeli strikes on Houthi sites in Yemen… The IAF has handled at least 16 Golden Horizon ALBMs and 40 IS02 (Rocks) ALBMs since October 8,” reports Times of Israel.
According to CNN, one of the documents reveals that Israel maintains a nuclear weapons arsenal which, for decades, has been an open secret. This is highly controversial, as amendments made to US foreign assistance laws by US Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn in 1976 make Washington’s huge military aid to Israel illegal because Tel Aviv is not a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But successive US presidents since Richard Nixon, including Joe Biden most recently, have agreed with their Israeli counterparts to never acknowledge Israel’s approximately 90–300 nukes.
US officials are telling the media that the leak is “extremely serious.” At the same time, officials emphasize that it will probably not affect Israel’s plans. Without commenting further, the Pentagon as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have not disputed the documents’ authenticity. The US has apologized to Tel Aviv for the leak, an Israeli source told Haaretz.
Washington is expected to be involved with the Iran assault either by providing intelligence support to Israel, or less likely by pursuing direct military action. Earlier this week, the US bombed Houthi targets in Yemen using B-2 long-range stealth bombers, which haven’t seen combat since 2017, in a message to the Islamic Republic.
Israel’s attack is being framed as retaliation against Tehran for Iran’s October 1 barrage of roughly 200 ballistic missiles which targeted Israeli military sites. That missile attack came in response to a litany of Israeli provocations, amidst its genocidal war against the Palestinians, including the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh while he was visiting the Iranian capital this summer.
Earlier on Saturday, reports surfaced of a drone attack on a home belonging to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Israel’s Channel 12, an official said this will imply “greater legitimacy for a wider range of targets” concerning the upcoming Iran strike. Netanyahu has fingered Hezbollah for the drone attack, although the group has not claimed responsibility.
Gabor Mate: ‘It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok’
October 20, 2024 https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/20/gabor-mate-its-like-were-watching-auschwitz-on-tiktok/
Had there been YouTube and Instagram and TikTok around Auschwitz, this is what we would have seen, people burning alive. And it’s beyond horrendous, it’s beyond comprehension.”
In an online meeting with French activist and film producer Frank Barat on Monday, Canadian physician Gabor Mate explored the psychological complexities of witnessing atrocities in Gaza and Palestine, saying: “It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok.”
They delve into the emotional and historical roots of violence and oppression, highlighting the trauma, guilt, and helplessness experienced by observers. Mate stresses the need to acknowledge these emotions and examines the normalisation of violence, while contemplating the future implications for Gaza and global society.
Widening the War: The US Sends Troops to Israel
October 20, 2024, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/widening-the-war-the-us-sends-troops-to-israel/
The dangers should be plastered on every wall in every office occupied by a military and political advisor. Israel’s attempt to reshape the Middle East, far from giving it enduring security, will merely serve to make it more vulnerable and unstable than ever. In that mix and mess will be its greatest sponsor and guardian, the United States, a giant of almost blind antiquity in all matters concerning the Jewish state.
In a measure that should have garnered bold headlines, the Biden administration has announced the deployment of some 100 US soldiers to Israel who will be responsible for operating the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. They are being sent to a conflict that resembles a train travelling at high speed, with no risk of stopping. As Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant promised in the aftermath of Iran’s October 1 missile assault on his country, “Our strike will be powerful, precise, and above all – surprising.” It would be of such a nature that “They will not understand what happened and how it happened.”
In an October 16 meeting between the Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Gallant, the deployment of a mobile THAAD battery was seen “as an operational example of the United States’ ironclad support to the defense of Israel.” Largely meaningless bits of advice were offered to Gallant: that Israel “continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation” and take “all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security” of UN peacekeepers operating in Lebanon’s south.
The charade continued the next day in a conversation between Austin and Gallant discussing the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. THAAD was again mentioned as essential for Israel’s “right to defence itself” while representing the “United States’ unwavering, enduring, and ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.” (“Ironclad” would seem to be the word of the moment, neatly accompanying Israel’s own Iron Dome defence system.)
A statement from the Pentagon press secretary, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, was a fatuous effort in minimising the dangers of the deployment. The battery would merely “augment Israel’s integrated air defense system,” affirm the ongoing commitment to Israel’s defence and “defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks from Iran.”
The very public presence of US troops, working alongside their Israeli counterparts in anticipation of broadening conflict, does not merely suggest Washington’s failure to contain their ally. It entails a promise of ceaseless supply, bolstering and emboldening. Furthermore, it will involve placing US troops in harm’s way, a quixotic invitation if ever there was one.
As things stand, the US is already imperilling its troops by deploying them in a series of bases in Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Iran’s armed affiliates have been making their presence felt, harrying the stationed troops with increasing regularity since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7 last year. A gradual, attritive toll is registering, featuring such attacks as those on the Tower 22 base in northern Jordan in January that left three US soldiers dead.
Writing in August for The Guardian, former US army major Harrison Mann eventually realised an awful truth about the mounting assaults on these sandy outposts of the US imperium: “there was no real plan to protect US troops beyond leaving them in their small, isolated bases while local militants, emboldened and agitated by US support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, used them for target practice.” To send more aircraft and warships to the Middle East also served to encourage “reckless escalation towards a wider war,” providing insurance to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could be protected “from the consequences of his actions.”
Daniel Davis, a military expert at Defense Priorities, is firmly logical on the point of enlisting US personnel in the Israeli cause. “Naturally, if Americans are killed in the execution of their duties, there will be howls from the pro-war hawks in the West ‘demanding’ the president ‘protect our troops’ by firing back on Iran.” It was “exactly the sort of thing that gets nations sucked into war they have no interest in fighting.”
Polling, insofar as that measure counts, suggests that enthusiasm for enrolling US troops in Israel’s defence is far from warm. In results from a survey published by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in August, some four in ten polled would favour sending US troops to defend Israel if it was attacked by Iran. Of the sample, 53% of Republicans would favour defending Israel in that context, along with four in 10 independents (42%), and a third of Democrats (34%).
There have also been some mutterings from the Pentagon itself about Israel’s burgeoning military effort, in particular against the Lebanese Iran-backed militia, Hezbollah. In a report from The New York Times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., is said to be worried about the widening US presence in the region, a fact that would hamper overall “readiness” of the US in other conflicts. Being worried is just the start of it.
Israel Is Routinely Shooting Children in the Head in Gaza: US Surgeon & Palestinian Nurse
SCHEERPOST, October 17, 2024
As the official death toll in Gaza passes more than 42,400, the true number may be impossible to know until Israel’s war is over. But medical workers who witnessed the carnage in Gaza’s hospitals are speaking out. We speak with Dr. Feroze Sidhwa about his op-ed in The New York Times that features harrowing stories from dozens of healthcare workers and CT scans of children shot in the head or the left side of the chest. The Times called the corresponding images of the patients too graphic to publish. “I personally wish that Americans could see more of what it looks like when a child is shot in the head, when a child is flayed open by bombs,” says Sidhwa. “I think it would make us think a little bit more about what we do in the world.” We also speak with Palestinian nurse Rajaa Musleh, who worked at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. “I will never forget the dogs were eating the dead body inside Shifa Hospital at the front of the emergency department. This will be stuck on my mind for my whole life,” says Musleh. “My message for the whole world: We are human beings. We are not numbers. We have the right to receive healthcare inside Gaza.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As the official death toll in Gaza passes more than 42,400, the true number may be impossible to know until Israel’s war is over. But medical workers who witnessed the carnage in Gaza’s hospitals are speaking out.
We begin today’s show with a surgeon who volunteered at the European Hospital in Khan Younis and wrote a devastating opinion piece in The New York Times headlined “65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza.”
In a minute, we’ll be joined by Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who begins the piece writing, quote, “I worked as a trauma surgeon in Gaza from March 25 to April 8. I’ve volunteered in Ukraine and Haiti, and I grew up in Flint, Mich. I’ve seen violence and worked in conflict zones. But of the many things that stood out about working in a hospital in Gaza, one got to me: Nearly every day I was there, I saw a new young child who had been shot in the head or the chest, virtually all of whom went on to die. Thirteen in total.
“At the time, I assumed this had to be the work of a particularly sadistic soldier located nearby. But after returning home, I met an emergency medicine physician who had worked in a different hospital in Gaza two months before me. ‘I couldn’t believe the number of kids I saw shot in the head,’ I told him. To my surprise, he responded: ‘Yeah, me, too. Every single day,’” he said.
The piece quotes dozens of healthcare workers and includes three X-rays or CT scans of pediatric patients who were shot in the head or the left side of the chest. The person who provided the scans was Dr. Mimi Syed, who worked in Khan Younis from August 8th to September 5th and said the children usually arrived at the hospital either dead or in critical condition after suffering a single shot.
On Tuesday, The New York Times opinion section editor issued a statement refuting claims circulating online that the images were altered, saying the editors had, quote, “photographs to corroborate the CT scan images,” but, quote, “because of their graphic nature, we decided these photos — of children with gunshot wounds to the head or neck — were too horrific for publication.”
For more, we’re joined by Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, the trauma and general surgeon who wrote this piece. He also spearheaded an open letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris signed by 99 U.S. medical professionals who served in Gaza, testifying to the unprecedented scale of the healthcare catastrophe and calling for an immediate ceasefire and the end to all U.S. support for Israel.
We are also joined in Chicago by Rajaa Musleh, the country representative in Gaza of MedGlobal, a medical humanitarian aid group. She previously worked as a nurse at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/17/israel-is-routinely-shooting-children-in-the-head-in-gaza-us-surgeon-palestinian-nurse/
Israel attacks the United Nations
Contrary to popular belief, the United Nations General Assembly has only accepted Israel’s membership conditionally (resolution 273). However, Tel Aviv has never respected its commitments. It refuses to implement 229 resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly. It has just declared a UN agency a “terrorist organization,” called for its headquarters in New York to be razed, designated its Secretary General António Guterres persona non grata, and has just attacked four times UN peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL), wounding two blue helmets.
Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 15 October 2024 by Thierry Meyssan, https://www.voltairenet.org/article221376.html
Israel has just attacked a position of the UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. When the British withdrew from Mandatory Palestine (i.e. Palestine placed by the League of Nations under the provisional administration of the United Kingdom) on May 14, 1948, the Zionist General Council, an offshoot of the Haganah (i.e. the main militia of the immigrant Jewish community), unilaterally proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel. It was announced by the chairman of the Jewish Agency (i.e. the executive of the World Zionist Organization).
It is important to note here that the British occupier withdrew from only about a quarter of Mandatory Palestine. It had already officially left the other three quarters, constituting Mandatory Transjordan, the future Jordan.
After a few days of reflection, the United Nations General Assembly decided to recognize the new state, not without having emphasized that in principle, it was not up to a militia, the Haganah, to proclaim a state, even if this proclamation came to fill the void left by the departure of the mandatory authority, that is to say the British. The General Assembly had noted that the proclamation of independence said nothing about the regime of this state (theocracy or republic), nor about its borders. It intended to pursue its plan for the creation of a binational state, both Arab and Jewish, without territorial continuity between the two entities (Jerusalem and Bethlehem having an international status). It had been reassured by the new state’s reference to “complete equality of social and political rights for all citizens without distinction of belief, race and sex.”
The day after independence, Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen sent their armies to Palestine. Official history today assures that these six countries (the “Arabs”, understand the “Muslims”) did not accept a Jewish state, while five of them opposed Jewish colonization after British colonization and the sixth supported Israel. Religion was a problem only for Izz al-Din al-Qassam, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Nazi mufti Mohammed Amin al-Husseini.
Identicaly, propaganda assures that these armies were defeated by the valiant Israeli army, implying “from the first day, the Jews are morally superior to the Arabs”. The reality was quite different. The world war had just ended and none of these countries, except Transjordan, had an army worthy of the name.
Their troops were exclusively formed of volunteers. In addition, the Transjordanian army, which ended the conflict, fought on the side of Israel against the other Arabs. Indeed, Transjordan, still under British influence, hoped to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and annex its territory. Its army was none other than that of the British (the “Arab Legion”) and was still placed under the command of General John Bagot Glubb (alias “Glubb Pasha”). It was the Transjordanians (in fact the British) and not the Israelis who defeated the other Arab armies.
During the conflict, its sovereign, King Abdullah I was also proclaimed “King of Palestine.” During this conflict, the Israeli forces let the British of Transjordan fight against the Arabs and applied Plan D (in Hebrew: Plan “Dalet”). The Haganh intended to share as little territory as possible with Transjordan. Israeli forces illegally imported weapons from Czechoslovakia (already ruled by the communists), probably with the agreement of the USSR, supposedly to fight against British colonization, in reality to expel the Palestinians. This is the Nakhba (catastrophe). 750,000 Palestinians (between 50 and 80% of the population) were forcibly displaced.
Israel requested and obtained, the following year, its membership in the United Nations. At that time, no decolonized state was part of it. The countries under Anglo-Saxon influence were in the majority. However, they only accepted Israel under conditions. In its resolution 273, the UN General Assembly referred to a written commitment by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the provisional government of Israel, Moshe Shertok, by which he “accepts without any reservation the obligations arising from the Charter of the United Nations and undertakes to observe them from the day it becomes a Member of the United Nations” [1].
To date, Israel has failed to uphold this commitment and has failed to comply with 229 Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. Its membership could therefore be suspended at any time.
In recent months,
• Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on March 23 that the UN had become “an anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organization that harbors and encourages terrorism.”
• Israel has campaigned against a UN agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), accusing it of serving Hamas. Last July, the Knesset passed three laws (1) banning UNRWA from operating on Israeli territory (2) stripping its staff of diplomatic immunities (3) declaring it a terrorist organization.
• Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, declared at the end of his term last August, speaking from the UN headquarters in New York, that “this edifice must be razed from the face of the Earth.”
• Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared UN Secretary-General António Guterres persona non grata.
• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deliberately targeted French, Italian and Irish soldiers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The bottom line:
• Israel was not created by its people, but by its army.
• The first Arab-Israeli war was not won by the Israelis, but by the Arabs of Transjordan under British command.
• By joining the United Nations, Israel committed itself to respecting all its resolutions, which it has violated 229 times.
• After Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, the Netanyahu government has opened an eighth front against the United Nations.
An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could backfire
And recent Iraqi history can tell us how.
Ibrahim Al-Marashi, Associate Professor of Middle East History at California State University San Marcos, Aljazeera, 16 Oct 24,
Since Iran’s October 1 missile attack on Israel in response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, there has been much speculation about how Tel Aviv will retaliate. Some observers have suggested that it could hit Iranian oil installations, and others, its nuclear facilities.
US President Joe Biden’s administration seems to oppose both options, but it has approved the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence system and United States troops to Israel, possibly in anticipation of an Iranian response to an Israeli strike.
Biden says he would not back Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites
Iran’s President Pezeshkian says Tehran ready to improve ties with West
Iranian president says ‘ready to engage’ on nuclear deal
Iran ready to resume nuclear negotiations immediately: Foreign minister
Meanwhile, Biden’s political adversary, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has egged on Israel to “hit the nuclear first”. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has also suggested the same.
While Trump, Kushner and other staunch Israel supporters are happy to cheer on an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, they likely know very little about the consequences of another such Israeli attack that targeted an Iraqi nuclear site.
Israel’s destruction of Iraq’s French-built Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981 actually pushed what was largely a peaceful nuclear programme underground and motivated Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to invest in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon. An aggressive act against Iran’s nuclear programme will likely have a similar effect.
A ‘pre-emptive’ strike
Iraq’s nuclear programme started in the 1960s with the USSR building a small nuclear research reactor and providing it with some know-how. In the 1970s, Iraq purchased a bigger reactor from France – called Osiraq – and expanded its civilian nuclear programme with significant French and Italian assistance.
The French government had made sure that technical measures were in place to prevent any possible dual use of the reactor and it shared this information with the US, Israel’s closest ally. Iraq, which was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and had its nuclear sites inspected regularly by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was not “on the brink of” developing a nuclear weapon, as Israel falsely asserted.
Nevertheless, the Israeli government, which was facing growing discontent domestically and a potential loss at the approaching legislative elections, decided to proceed with the “pre-emptive” strike…………………………………………………
A trove of declassified US documents released in 2021 demonstrates that Israel’s strike did not eliminate Iraq’s programme, but rather made Saddam more determined to acquire a nuclear weapon………………………………..
The consequences of a strike on Iran
…………………….assassinations may have killed key cadres, they have inspired a new generation of Iranians to pursue nuclear science, part of an Iranian “nuclear nationalism” emerging as a result of the constant attacks on Iran’s nuclear programme.
…………………………….. Israel’s actions so far are only increasing Iranian determination to continue its nuclear programme. A strike on any of its nuclear facilities would make that determination even stronger. And if we are to go by the Iraqi example, it may drive the Iranian nuclear programme underground and accelerate it towards the development of a nuclear weapon.
………. what Netanyahu is doing in Gaza and Lebanon now and will do in Iran will not bring victory to Israel. His strategy produces resentment in these countries and across the Middle East, which will help Iran and its allies rebuild swiftly whatever capabilities they lose to reckless Israeli strikes. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/10/14/an-israeli-attack-on-irans-nuclear-facilities-could-backfire
We’re Basically Being Asked To Believe That The Palestinians Are Genociding Themselves
Caitlin Johnstone, 16 Oct 24
One of the dumbest things we are asked to believe about Israel’s genocide in Gaza is that all these civilians are being butchered because the Palestinians are evil and not the Israelis. That it’s the victims doing evil things and not the perpetrators.
That’s all this gibberish about “human shields” and “self-defense” is meant to do, you know. To make it look like the victims of siege warfare and carpet bombing are the ones responsible for all the death and destruction we are seeing and not the people who are actually doing it.
Can you think of anything more insulting to your intelligence? So self-evidently counter to common sense? They’re seriously asking you to believe that the people who are being starved, shot and bombed to death are the perpetrators of their own genocide, and that the side which has attacked every hospital in Gaza are just the innocent bystanders responding to unprovoked acts of aggression in the most ethical and responsible way they can manage.
Off the top of my head I really can’t think of anything more absurd.
❖
Everyone who reacted with more sympathy or outrage over October 7 than they have over the last year of Israeli atrocities has just spent a year confessing that they don’t see Palestinians as human beings.
I am not a dog person or a cat person, but if I saw dogs or cats being treated the way Palestinian human beings are being treated I would care more than the average western liberal cares about Palestinians.
A liberal is someone who thinks the moderate position between being pro-Israel and being pro-Palestine is giving Israel everything it needs to genocide the Palestinians and then watching the genocide and saying “Oh how heartbreaking and tragic, this is all very complicated.”
Israel to continue blocking humanitarian aid from Gaza on the grounds that the aid could fall into the hands of Palestinian civilians.
❖
Imagine getting into journalism school thinking you’ll change the world for the better, finally graduating and making your family proud, getting into a prominent news outlet, spending years working your way up to editor, only to wind up spending your days writing headlines like “Gaza children perish after chance encounter with missile.”……………………………………………………… more https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/were-basically-being-asked-to-believe?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=150287267&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
200+ Jewish-Led Protesters Arrested at NY Stock Exchange Say ‘Stop Arming Israel’
“The U.S. war economy is profiting from genocide,” said Jewish Voice for Peace. “The 50+ members of Congress who invest in arms companies get richer every day.”
Jessica Corbett, 14 Oct 24, https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-wall-street
As the Israeli assault of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon continued on Monday, over 200 Jewish-led protesters, including descendants of Holocaust survivors, were arrested at the New York Stock Exchange while demanding that the United States “stop arming Israel and profiting from genocide.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—which has led several anti-genocide protests across the country over the past year of war—said that hundreds of people joined the action in New York City. The advocacy group shared photos and videos on social media of participants in red T-shirts with messages including “Not in Our Name” and “Stop Arming Israel.”
They sat in rows outside the iconic NYC building with banners that said, “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel,” “Arms Embargo Now,” “Jews Say Divest From Israel,” “Gaza Bombed, Wall Street Boomed,” and “Fund FEMA Not Genocide,” a reference to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is responding to damage from hurricanes in the Southeast.
As NBC Newsreported on Monday:
Individuals representing Jewish Voices for Peace, a Jewish-led pro-Palestinian group, arrived at the exchange at 85 Broad St. as part of an “unscheduled protest” just before the stock market’s official 9:30 am opening, according to a New York Police Department spokesperson.
A number of arrests were made, the spokesperson said, but an exact figure could not immediately be obtained. An NYSE representative said at least one person had handcuffed himself between an interior and exterior door.
JVP, which said that over 200 people were arrested, posted footage of multiple protesters in red shirts chained to a door and a fence and of officers carrying away demonstrators. The group said that “police are dragging Jewish protesters by their arms and legs as they refuse to leave the global epicenter of capital on Wall Street.”
As the Israeli assault of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon continued on Monday, over 200 Jewish-led protesters, including descendants of Holocaust survivors, were arrested at the New York Stock Exchange while demanding that the United States “stop arming Israel and profiting from genocide.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—which has led several anti-genocide protests across the country over the past year of war—said that hundreds of people joined the action in New York City. The advocacy group shared photos and videos on social media of participants in red T-shirts with messages including “Not in Our Name” and “Stop Arming Israel.”
They sat in rows outside the iconic NYC building with banners that said, “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel,” “Arms Embargo Now,” “Jews Say Divest From Israel,” “Gaza Bombed, Wall Street Boomed,” and “Fund FEMA Not Genocide,” a reference to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is responding to damage from hurricanes in the Southeast.
As NBC Newsreported on Monday:
Individuals representing Jewish Voices for Peace, a Jewish-led pro-Palestinian group, arrived at the exchange at 85 Broad St. as part of an “unscheduled protest” just before the stock market’s official 9:30 am opening, according to a New York Police Department spokesperson.
A number of arrests were made, the spokesperson said, but an exact figure could not immediately be obtained. An NYSE representative said at least one person had handcuffed himself between an interior and exterior door.
JVP, which said that over 200 people were arrested, posted footage of multiple protesters in red shirts chained to a door and a fence and of officers carrying away demonstrators. The group said that “police are dragging Jewish protesters by their arms and legs as they refuse to leave the global epicenter of capital on Wall Street.”
“As Gaza is bombed, Wall Street booms,” the group said. “The stock prices of weapons manufacturers have skyrocketed this year. The U.S. war economy is profiting from genocide. The 50+ members of Congress who invest in arms companies get richer every day.”
As Common Dreams has reported, stocks of American war profiteers—including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon—soared in response to Israel launching its assault on Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack as well as earlier this month, after Israeli forces began a ground invasion of Lebanon and Iran fired off ballistic missiles.
“Remember that members of Congress are permitted to own stock in war manufacturing, so when they vote to send more bombs or send our loved ones to war, they profit personally,” U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said in early October.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, has introduced the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act, which would prohibit federal lawmakers along with their spouses and dependent children from trading defense stocks or having financial interests in companies that do business with the U.S. Department of Defense.
“Politicians should not be allowed to profit from genocide,” said MacArthur fellow Ros Petchesky, an 82-year-old JVP member who was active in the movement to end the war in Vietnam, and the oldest person chained to the Wall Street gates on Monday. “There can be no business as usual while the U.S. arms Israel and profits from genocide. We’re here to demand an arms embargo now.”
Report: Israel Plans To Strike Iran Before US Presidential Election
Officials told The Washington Post that Netanyahu told Biden he plans to target military sites inside Iran
by Dave DeCamp October 14, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/10/14/report-israel-plans-to-strike-iran-before-us-presidential-election/#gsc.tab=0
Israel is planning to launch its expected attack on Iran before the US presidential elections are held on November 5, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
An unnamed official told the Post that waiting any longer could be perceived as weakness and that the planned strike “will be one in a series of responses” to the Iranian ballistic missile barrage that was fired at Israel on October 1, which came in response to a series of Israeli escalations.
A source close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Post that while Israel was coordinating with the US to some extent on its plans to attack Iran, it wouldn’t wait for a green light from the US. “The person who will decide on the Israeli response to Iran will be [Netanyahu],” the official said.
The report said that when Netanyahu spoke with President Biden last week, he said that Israel planned to hit military infrastructure inside Iran, not oil or nuclear facilities. The conversation was a factor in Biden’s decision to deploy a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile battery to Israel.
The Pentagon announced Sunday that it was deploying the THAAD and about 100 troops to operate it “to support the defense of Israel.” Iran has vowed that it would respond to any Israeli attack on its territory, and the US deployment makes US troops a potential target of Iranian missiles.
The Post report noted how the Biden administration has been fully supportive of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and its dramatic escalation of airstrikes against the country. A former Israeli official said the US was “giving Israel and the Netanyahu government a bear hug, but for Hezbollah.”
“It is sending THAAD and promising all kinds of weapons that we need to finish off Hezbollah, saying that we can deal with Iran later,” the former official added.
US military and diplomatic support for Israel over the past year has fueled the genocidal slaughter in Gaza and emboldened Israeli escalations across the Middle East, and has now brought the US and Iran to the brink of war. Brown University’s Costs of War project recently released a report that supporting Israel has cost the US $22.76 Billion in just one year.
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
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