Saudi Arabia, US on ‘pathway’ to civil nuclear agreement, US Energy Secretary says
The United States and Saudi Arabia will sign a preliminary agreement to cooperate over the kingdom’s ambitions to develop a civil nuclear industry, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters in the Saudi capital
Riyadh on Sunday.
Wright, who had met with Saudi Energy Minister Prince
Abdulaziz bin Salman earlier on Sunday, said Riyadh and Washington were on a “a pathway” to reaching an agreement to work together to develop a Saudi
civil nuclear programme.
Reuters 13th April 2025 https://www.reuters.com/world/saudi-arabia-us-pathway-civil-nuclear-agreement-us-energy-secretary-says-2025-04-13/
Iran says ‘indirect talks’ have taken place with US over nuclear programme – with more to follow
The talks come after US President Donald Trump warned Iran it would be in “great danger” if a deal wasn’t reached between the two countries.
Sky News 1 13 April 2025
The discussions on Saturday took place in Muscat, Oman, with the host nation’s officials mediating between representatives of Iran and the US, who were seated in separate rooms, according to Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry.
After the meeting, Oman’s foreign minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi thanked Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff for joining the negotiations aimed at “global peace, security and stability”, in an X post.
“We will continue to work together and put further efforts to assist in arriving at this goal,” he added.
‘Very positive’ and ‘constructive’
Iranian state media claimed the US and Iranian officials “briefly spoke in the presence of the Omani foreign minister” at the end of the talks – a claim Mr Araghchi echoed in a statement on Telegram.
He said the talks took place in a “constructive atmosphere based on mutual respect” and that they would continue next week.
Speaking on board Air Force One on Saturday US President Donald Trump said the “talks are going okay”……………………………………………………..
Reuters news agency said an Omani source told it the talks were focused on de-escalating regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and limited agreements to ease sanctions in exchange for controlling Iran’s nuclear programme.
‘Great danger’ if talks fail
Donald Trump has insisted Tehran cannot get nuclear weapons.
He said on Monday the talks would be direct, but Tehran officials insisted it would be conducted through an intermediary.
Mr Trump also warned Iran would be in “great danger” if negotiations fail…………….
He added Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon, and if the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran”.
The comments came after Mr Trump’s previous warnings of possible military action against Iran if there is no deal over its nuclear programme. https://news.sky.com/story/iran-says-indirect-talks-taking-place-with-us-over-nuclear-programme-13347051
Israel is About to Empty Gaza
April 13, 2025 By Chris Hedges ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/04/13/israel-is-about-to-empty-gaza/
Israel is poised to carry out the largest campaign of ethnic cleansing since the end of World War II. Since March 2, it has blocked all food and humanitarian aid into Gaza and cut off electricity, so that the last water desalination plant no longer functions. The Israeli military has seized half of the territory — Gaza is 25 miles long and four to five miles wide — and placed two-thirds of Gaza under displacement orders, rendered “no-go zones,” including the border town of Rafah, which is encircled by Israeli troops.
On Friday Defence Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel will “intensify” the war against Hamas and use “all military and civilian pressure, including evacuation of the Gaza population south and implementing United States President [Donald] Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents.”
Since Israel’s unilateral ending of the ceasefire on March 18 — which was never honored by Israel — Israel has been carrying out relentless bombing and shelling against civilians, killing over 1,400 Palestinians and wounding over 3,600, according to the Palestinian health ministry. An average of one hundred children are being killed daily according to the United Nations. Israel is, at the same time, inciting tensions with Egypt to lay what I suspect will be the groundwork for a mass expulsion of Palestinians into the Egyptian Sinai.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, echoing Katz, said Israel would not lift the total blockade until Hamas was “defeated” and the remaining 59 Israeli hostages were released.
“Not even a grain of wheat will enter Gaza,” he vowed.
But no one in Israel or Gaza expects Hamas, which has weathered the decimation of Gaza and sustained mass slaughter, to surrender or disappear.
The question no longer is will the Palestinians be deported from Gaza but when they will be pushed out and where they will go. The Israeli leadership is apparently torn between driving Palestinians over the border into Egypt or shipping them to countries in Africa. The U.S. and Israel have contacted three East African governments – Sudan, Somalia and the breakaway region of Somalia known as Somaliland – to discuss the resettlement of ethnically cleansed Palestinians.
The consequences of wholesale ethnic cleansing will be catastrophic, jeopardizing the stability of the Arab regimes allied with Washington and setting off firestorms of protests within Arab countries. It will likely mean the severing of diplomatic relations between Israel and its neighbors Jordan and Egypt, already close to the breaking point, and push the region closer to war.
Diplomatic relations have fallen to their lowest point since the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979. The Israeli embassies in Cairo and Amman are largely empty with Israeli staff withdrawn over security concerns following the Oct. 7 incursion into Israel by Hamas and other armed Palestinian factions. Egypt has refused to accept the credentials of Uri Rothman, who was appointed to be the Israeli ambassador last September. Egypt did not name a new ambassador to Israel when former ambassador, Khaled Azmi, was recalled last year.
Israeli officials are accusing Egypt of violating the Camp David accords by increasing its military presence and building new military installations in the Northern Sinai, charges Egypt says are fabricated. The peace treaty’s annex permits additional Egyptian military hardware in the Sinai.
Former Israeli chief of the general staff, Herzi Halevi, warned of what he calls Egypt’s “security threat.” Katz said that Israel would not allow Egypt to “violate the peace treaty” between the two countries signed in 1979.
Egyptian officials note that it is Israel that has violated the treaty by occupying the Philadelphi Corridor, also known as the Salahuddin Axis, which runs along the nine mile border between Gaza and Egypt and is supposed to be demilitarized.
“Every Israeli action along Gaza’s border with Egypt constitutes hostile behavior against Egypt’s national security,” Egyptian General Mohammed Rashad, a former military intelligence chief, told the Arabic language newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat.
“Egypt cannot sit idly by in the face of such threats and must prepare for all possible scenarios.”
Israeli officials are openly calling for the “voluntary transfer” of Palestinians to Egypt. Knesset member, Avigdor Lieberman, stated that “displacing most Palestinians from Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai is a practical and effective solution.” He contrasted the high population density — Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet — with the vast “untapped lands” in the Egyptian Northern Sinai and noted that Palestinians share a common culture and language with Egypt, making any deportation “natural.” He also criticized Egypt because it allegedly “benefits economically from the current political situation,” as a mediator between Israel and Hamas and “reaps profits from smuggling operations through the tunnels and the Rafah crossing.”
The Israeli think tank Misgav Institute for National Security, staffed by former Israeli military and security officials, published a paper on Oct. 17, 2023, calling on the government to take advantage of the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip,” and resettle Palestinians in Cairo with the assistance of the Egyptian government. A leaked document from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry proposed resettling Palestinians from Gaza to the Northern Sinai and constructing barriers and buffer zones to prevent their return.
Any expulsion would likely happen swiftly with Israeli forces, which are already mercilessly herding Palestinians into containment areas in Gaza, carrying out a sustained bombing campaign against the trapped Palestinians while creating porous evacuation portals along the border with Egypt. It would entail a potentially lethal standoff with the Egyptian military, instantly throwing the Egyptian regime of Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who has described any ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza as a “red line,” into crisis. It would be a short step from there to a regional conflict.
Israel has seized territory in Syria and southern Lebanon, part of its vision of “Greater Israel,” which includes occupying land in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It covets the maritime gas fields off Gaza’s coast and has floated plans for a new canal to bypass the Suez Canal, to connect Israel’s bankrupt Eilat Port on the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. These projects require emptying Gaza of Palestinians and populating it with Jewish colonists.
The anger on the Arab street — an anger I witnessed over the past few months during visits to Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Qatar — will explode in a justifiable fury if mass deportation takes place. These regimes, simply to hold on to power, will be forced to act. Terrorist attacks, whether by organized groups or lone wolves, will proliferate against Israeli and western targets, especially the United States.
The genocide is a recruitment dream for Islamic militants. Washington and Israel must, on some level, understand the cost of this savagery. But it appears as though they accept it, foolishly trying to obliterate those they have cast out of the community of nations, those they refer to as “human animals.”
What do Israel and Washington believe will happen when the Palestinians are expelled from a land they have lived in for centuries? How do they think a people who are desperate, deprived of hope, dignity and a way to make a living, who are being butchered by one of the most technologically advanced armies on the planet, will respond? Do they think creating a Danteesque hell for the Palestinians will blunt terrorism, curb suicide attacks and foster peace? Can they not grasp the rage rippling through the Middle East and how it will implant a hatred towards us that will endure for decades?
The genocide in Gaza is the greatest crime of this century. It will come back to haunt Israel. It will come back to haunt us. It will usher to our doorsteps the evil we have perpetrated on the Palestinians.
You reap what you sow. We have sown a minefield of hatred and violence.
Media Find Ways to Minimize Israel’s Murder of Paramedics
Belén Fernández, April 11, 2025, https://fair.org/home/media-find-ways-to-minimize-israels-murder-of-paramedics/
Israeli soldiers on March 23 massacred 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers near the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israel’s ongoing US-backed genocide has officially killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The slaughter took place before dawn, as a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck from the Palestinian Civil Defense service endeavored to respond to a lethal Israeli attack on another ambulance, which had itself been attempting to rescue victims of an Israeli airstrike.
Eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, six Civil Defense workers and one UN staff member were murdered by Israeli gunfire. Their mutilated bodies were bulldozed into a mass grave, their vehicles crushed and buried as well.
The initial Israeli narrative was that nine of the emergency responders were militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously…without headlights or emergency signals.”
As it turns out, however, all headlights and emergency signals were very much on—not that it’s fine to massacre people for driving with no lights, of course. When, after a week of negotiations with Israeli occupying forces, another convoy was finally permitted to access the mass grave and unearth the bodies, the mobile phone of massacre victim Rifat Radwan was found to contain footage of the lead-up to the assault, which shows the clearly marked rescue vehicles advancing with emergency lights on. A barrage of Israeli gunfire then persists for more than five minutes, as Radwan’s screen goes black and he bids farewell to his mother.
Following the release of the video footage, Israel conceded that perhaps its version of events had been partially “mistaken”—but only the claim about the headlights being off. The number of alleged “terrorists” on board was furthermore downgraded from nine to six, the other fatalities naturally being labeled human shields and therefore fundamentally the fault of Hamas.
Anyway, no one committing a genocide really cares about the precise identities of 15 people; mass indiscriminate killing is, after all, the whole point of the undertaking. Since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, the United Nations calculates that more than 100 children per day have been killed or injured in Gaza.
Ludicrous headlines
Notwithstanding reality, the Western corporate media somehow could not bring itself to report this particular massacre of medics without beating around the bush. The New York Times (4/4/25), for example, ran the following ludicrous headline: “Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On.” There was no room, apparently, to mention the role of Israel in said gunfire barrage, although the syntax implies that the ambulance lights may have perpetrated the killing.
The article’s subheadline specifies that “the UN has said Israel killed the workers”—and yet the singular attribution of this opinion to the United Nations is entirely confounding, given that the very first paragraph of the article itself states that the video “shows that the ambulances and fire truck… were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.”
For its part, NPR (4/5/25) went with its own similarly diplomatic headline: “Palestinian Medics Say a Video of Gaza Rescue Crews Under Fire Refutes Israeli Claims.” CNN (4/6/25) opted for: “Video Showing Final Moments of Gaza Emergency Workers Casts Doubt on Israeli Account of Killings.”
NBC News (4/7/25) reported that the Israeli military had “walked back its account of its killing of 15 paramedics and emergency workers in southern Gaza last month after video emerged that called into question its version of events”; the Washington Post (4/6/25) concurred that that Israel had “backtracked on its account…after phone video appeared to contradict its claims that their vehicles did not have emergency signals on.”
The Guardian (4/5/25), meanwhile, went as far as to assert that the cell phone footage, which “appears to contradict the version of events put forward” by the Israeli military, “appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle” and features “a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.” Imagine if all news reports were written in such roundabout fashion, e.g., “State officials say that what appears to be a bridge collapsed on Thursday into what appears to be a river.”
April 11, 2025
Media Find Ways to Minimize Israel’s Murder of Paramedics
NBC (4/7/25) presented evidence that killed 15 aid workers and buried their bodies along with their vehicles as an IDF “mistake.”
Israeli soldiers on March 23 massacred 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers near the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israel’s ongoing US-backed genocide has officially killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The slaughter took place before dawn, as a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck from the Palestinian Civil Defense service endeavored to respond to a lethal Israeli attack on another ambulance, which had itself been attempting to rescue victims of an Israeli airstrike.
Eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, six Civil Defense workers and one UN staff member were murdered by Israeli gunfire. Their mutilated bodies were bulldozed into a mass grave, their vehicles crushed and buried as well.
The initial Israeli narrative was that nine of the emergency responders were militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously…without headlights or emergency signals.”
As it turns out, however, all headlights and emergency signals were very much on—not that it’s fine to massacre people for driving with no lights, of course. When, after a week of negotiations with Israeli occupying forces, another convoy was finally permitted to access the mass grave and unearth the bodies, the mobile phone of massacre victim Rifat Radwan was found to contain footage of the lead-up to the assault, which shows the clearly marked rescue vehicles advancing with emergency lights on. A barrage of Israeli gunfire then persists for more than five minutes, as Radwan’s screen goes black and he bids farewell to his mother.
Following the release of the video footage, Israel conceded that perhaps its version of events had been partially “mistaken”—but only the claim about the headlights being off. The number of alleged “terrorists” on board was furthermore downgraded from nine to six, the other fatalities naturally being labeled human shields and therefore fundamentally the fault of Hamas.
Anyway, no one committing a genocide really cares about the precise identities of 15 people; mass indiscriminate killing is, after all, the whole point of the undertaking. Since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, the United Nations calculates that more than 100 children per day have been killed or injured in Gaza.
Ludicrous headlines
The New York Times‘ lead (4/4/25) says the aid workers were killed “when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire”—but the headline omits Israel altogether, and the subhead treats Israel’s responsibility as a UN accusation.
Notwithstanding reality, the Western corporate media somehow could not bring itself to report this particular massacre of medics without beating around the bush. The New York Times (4/4/25), for example, ran the following ludicrous headline: “Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On.” There was no room, apparently, to mention the role of Israel in said gunfire barrage, although the syntax implies that the ambulance lights may have perpetrated the killing.
The article’s subheadline specifies that “the UN has said Israel killed the workers”—and yet the singular attribution of this opinion to the United Nations is entirely confounding, given that the very first paragraph of the article itself states that the video “shows that the ambulances and fire truck… were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.”
For its part, NPR (4/5/25) went with its own similarly diplomatic headline: “Palestinian Medics Say a Video of Gaza Rescue Crews Under Fire Refutes Israeli Claims.” CNN (4/6/25) opted for: “Video Showing Final Moments of Gaza Emergency Workers Casts Doubt on Israeli Account of Killings.”
NBC News (4/7/25) reported that the Israeli military had “walked back its account of its killing of 15 paramedics and emergency workers in southern Gaza last month after video emerged that called into question its version of events”; the Washington Post (4/6/25) concurred that that Israel had “backtracked on its account…after phone video appeared to contradict its claims that their vehicles did not have emergency signals on.”
The Guardian (4/5/25), meanwhile, went as far as to assert that the cell phone footage, which “appears to contradict the version of events put forward” by the Israeli military, “appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle” and features “a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.” Imagine if all news reports were written in such roundabout fashion, e.g., “State officials say that what appears to be a bridge collapsed on Thursday into what appears to be a river.”
The New York Times on April 7 produced its own follow-up headline, “Video Shows Search for Missing Gaza Paramedics Before Israelis Shoot Rescuers”—thanks to which readers were presumably too busy trying to parse the grammar to think about anything else.
‘Not seen as fully human’
In the case of Israel, corporate media have institutionalized the practice of dancing around the straightforward statement of fact, which is why we never see headlines like “Israel Massacres 15 Palestinian Medics in Rafah,” or, obviously, any acknowledgement that Israel is currently perpetrating a genocide in Gaza (FAIR.org, 12/12/24). Thanks in large part to Israel’s oh-so-special relationship with the US, which happily bankrolls its crimes against humanity, the media have long grotesquely skewed reporting in Israel’s favor in order to validate the whole arrangement.
As Palestinian political analyst and playwright Ahmed Najar writes in a recent op-ed for Al Jazeera (4/6/25), the slaughter of the 15 medics and rescuers in Gaza matters because “their story is not just about one atrocity.” It’s about an entire system
in which Palestinians are presumed guilty. A system in which hospitals must prove they are hospitals, schools must prove they are schools and children must prove they are not human shields.
A system in which, “when Palestinians die, their families have to prove they weren’t terrorists first.” Najar concludes: “When Palestinians are not seen as fully human, then their killers are not seen as fully responsible.”
Western media insistence on giving ample space to Israel’s patently absurd arguments naturally doesn’t help matters—as when the Associated Press (4/6/25) allows an anonymous Israeli military official to contend that there was “no mistreatment” in the killing of the 15 medics. How could there ever be “mistreatment” in a genocide?
In its dispatch on how Israel “walked back” its account of the killing, NBC (4/7/25) quoted the Israeli military as saying that soldiers weren’t trying to “hide anything” by burying the 15 corpses, which is kind of like allowing someone caught holding up a bank with an AK-47 the opportunity to state that they weren’t trying to “steal anything.” From a journalistic standpoint, it makes no sense to grant credibility to a clearly disingenuous narrative. From a propaganda perspective, unfortunately, it does.
‘Good reason to be anxious’
In the end, the slaughter of these 15 men should come as no surprise; as of January, Israel had already killed more than 1,000 health workers in Gaza in a little over a year, while engaging in repeated attacks on hospitals and an obscene decimation of medical infrastructure. On April 1, the UN reported that 408 aid workers had also been killed since October 2023, including 280 UN staff.
Killing medical personnel and emergency responders has long been Israel’s modus operandi. Recall Razan al-Najjar, the 21-year-old Palestinian nurse fatally shot by an Israeli sniper in Gaza in 2018, when Israel claimed that unarmed Palestinian protesters were conducting “kite and balloon terrorism.”
Or recall Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which kicked off in Gaza in December 2008 and killed 1,400 Palestinians over a span of 22 days, among them 300 children. The brief assault left 16 medics dead and damaged more than half of Gaza’s hospitals. The Guardian (3/24/09) quoted the Israeli army as reasoning that “medics who operate in the area take the risk upon themselves”—to hell with the Geneva Conventions.
To be sure, war crimes are all in a day’s work for Israel—and covering them up is, it seems, all in a day’s work for the corporate media. In a dispatch about how Israel “acknowledged flaws” in its “mistaken” account of its killing of the rescue workers, the New York Times‘ Isabel Kershner (4/6/25) cited Israeli military affairs analyst Amos Harel on how the Israeli soldiers who did the killing “had ‘good reason to be anxious,’ and that it would be wrong to assume immediately that the case was one of ‘murder in cold blood.’”
Naturally, it would be inhumane to assume that any aspect of genocide might transpire in cold blood. And as Israel continues its quest to normalize total depravity, Western journalism is becoming ever more cold-blooded, too.
Trump declares he would ‘absolutely’ bomb Iran if it refuses to give up its bid for nuclear weapons
The Iran nuclear deal, which Trump scuttled after it was put in place under Barack Obama, was negotiated through multi-party talks.
On Tuesday Trump ridiculed fears of climate change, then pivoted to the Iran threat, which he called much more grave
Says Israel would be ‘very much involved’
By GEOFF EARLE, DEPUTY U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR, 10 April 25 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14589765/donald-trump-bomb-iran-nuclear-weapons.html
President Donald Trump openly discussed military action against Iran just days before talks are set to begin on its nuclear program.
He upped his threats a day after he used colorful language to warn against ‘nuclear heat’ while saying Iran must relinquish nuclear ambitions.
A reporter asked Trump to specify his comment Tuesday that it would be ‘very dangerous’ for Iran if nuclear talks are unsuccessful.
Well they can’t have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said. Pressed on if he meant military action, Trump responded: ‘Oh if necessary? Absolutely, yeah.’
Asked if he had a deadline with Iran, Trump responded, ‘Yeah, I do,’ but declined to say what it was.
But he said this weekend – with talks set to commence in Oman Saturday – was not the deadline. ‘We have a little time, but we don’t have much time,’ the president said.
‘Because we’re not going to let them have a nuclear weapon, can’t let them have a nuclear – and we’re gonna let them thrive. I want them to thrive. I want Iran to be great. The only thing they can’t have is a nuclear weapon.
‘I’m not asking for much. I just … they can’t have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said.
‘But with Iran, yeah, if we, if it requires military, we’re gonna have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that. He’ll be the leader of that. But nobody leads us. We do what we want to do.
In his final cryptic comment, he added: ‘When you start talks, you know they’re going along well or not. And I would say the conclusion would be when I think they’re not going along well. So that’s just a feeling.’
Trump has pledged it is ‘not after a nuclear bomb’ and even expressed interest to direct U.S. investment.
Trump’s comments came on a day he did a sudden U-turn and imposed a 90-day pause on his ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, while maintaining a 10 percent across the board tariff and hiking the tariff on China to 125 percent.
The episode revealed both Trump’s willingness to throw the global system into turmoil to achieve his goals, and his willingness to backtrack amid fears of a recession and trillions worth of market losses. He also signed orders directing the Justice Department to investigate Miles Taylor, who wrote a critical book under the pen name ‘Anonymous’ during his first term, and former cyber security official Chris Krebs, who vouched for the security of the 2020 elections during the COVID pandemic.
Satellite images have revealed the deployment of six nuclear-capable B-2 bombers on Diego Garcia, a British-owned naval base that has been critical during U.S. military campaigns.
Trump on Monday said the U.S. would hold top level ‘direct’ talks with Iran – while brandishing new threats and repeating demands that Iran could not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
‘We’re having direct talks with Iran. And they’ve started,’ Trump told reporters while seated in the Oval Office next to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, himself a top Iran hawk.
The talks are set to take place in Oman, but Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said the talks would be ‘indirect,’ amid longstanding tensions between the two nations.
The U.S. has avoided such direct talks for years. The Iran nuclear deal, which Trump scuttled after it was put in place under Barack Obama, was negotiated through multi-party talks.
‘I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with, if they can avoid it,’ he added. ‘So we are going to see if we can avoid it, but it’s getting to be very dangerous territory, and hopefully those talks will be successful.’
‘And I think it would be in Iran’s best interests if they are successful.’
On Tuesday Trump ridiculed fears of climate change, then pivoted to the Iran threat, which he called much more grave
‘We were going to be gone, we’re all going to be gone – the environment. No, what they have to worry about is the nuclear – nuclear heat. They don’t have to worry about environmental heat. They have to worry about nuclear heat,’ Trump said on an event where he called for deregulating the coal industry.
‘And if we’re smart, we’re working on that right now with others, having to do with Iran and some other countries,’ Trump said.
‘But that’s the that’s the heat you’re gonna have to worry about. You don’t have to worry about the air is getting warmer. The ocean will rise … within the next 500 to 600 years, giving you a little bit more waterfront property. They say this is going to these guys can handle that. The nuclear we have a bigger problem with, right?’ Trump said.
Iran claims its nuclear program is peaceful, but U.S. intelligence has long warned it was close to being capable of producing nuclear weapons.
How Israel hunts and executes Palestinian medics
The recent case of 15 uniformed first responders killed on their way to work is but the latest in a long, long line of similar crimes
The Israeli army has executed 15 Palestinian medics in Gaza, buried them and lied about them being “terrorists.” For those paying attention, this barbarism is not new, only the latest war crime committed by Israel in a litany of war crimes over the decades.
The combination of the medics being tied up, executed and buried in a mass grave was so horrific that even usually indifferent global media reported on it, albeit without the outrage that would have accompanied such reports were the perpetrator an enemy of the West. (Warning: disturbing video.)
On March 31, Jonathan Whittall, the Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA) posted on X, “First responders should never be a target. Yet today @UNOCHA supported @PalestineRCS and Civil Defense to retrieve colleagues from a mass grave in #Rafah #Gaza that was marked with the emergency light from one of their crushed ambulances.”
His thread went on to detail how a week prior, on March 23, contact was lost with ten Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and six Civil Defense first responders, in five ambulances and one fire truck, who’d been dispatched to collect injured people, noting, “For days, OCHA coordinated to reach the site but our access was only granted 5 days later.”
When they finally accessed the site, they “recovered the buried bodies of 8 PRCS, 6 Civil Defense and 1 UN staff,” he wrote, noting, “They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives. This should never have happened.”
According to the PRCS, a ninth EMT is missing and is believed to have been detained.
The UN, The Red Cross, and OCHA have all issued statements of outrage and condemnation of these murders. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Secretary General Jagan Chapagain said: “They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked. They should have returned to their families; they did not. These rules of International Humanitarian Law could not be clearer – civilians must be protected; humanitarians must be protected. Health services must be protected.”
According to Chapagain, 30 PRCS volunteers and staff have been killed since October 2023 alone.
OCHA called the murders “a huge blow to us” and said, “these abhorrent acts require accountability.” According to the UN, “408 aid workers including more than 280 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza since the war began on 7 October 2023.”
Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, wrote, “They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives. We demand answers & justice.”
The Guardian cites PRCS’ Dr. Bashar Murad, who spoke to one of the paramedics in the convoy:
“He informed us that he was injured and requested assistance, and that another person was also injured. A few minutes later, during the call, we heard the sound of Israeli soldiers arriving at the location, speaking in Hebrew. ‘Gather them at the wall and bring some restraints to tie them.’ This indicated that a large number of the medical staff were still alive.”
The Israeli army media spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, predictably denied Israeli army wrong-doing and blamed Hamas, claiming the ambulances were “advancing suspiciously” toward Israeli forces. He declared the execution of the medics be an elimination of “a Hamas military operative, along with 8 other terrorists from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.”
Observers on X rebuffed Shoshani, including pointing out the Israeli army has been attacking ambulances for a very long time.
Gaza medics under Israeli attack since 2009
I can speak from personal experience. During the January 2009 Israeli war on Gaza, I was among a handful of international volunteers riding in PRCS ambulances, to document their work and the victims they rescued……………………………………………………………………………………….
The abduction and torture of Palestinian doctors is another aspect of Israel’s all-out attack on Gaza’s health system. It is part of Israel’s attacks on Palestinians themselves, depriving them of life-saving care, part of the decades-long policy of killing Palestinians by every means possible, including by preventing the entry of medical equipment and food, starving Palestinians who escaped bombs and sniping.
I will post the same rhetorical question I’ve posed ad nauseam: What would the international reaction be like if it were Russia point-blank assassinating uniformed, unarmed medics? It would be non-stop 24/7 howling in corporate media, victims faces and stories spoken of, demands for more sanctions…
But Israel does this again and again over the decades and all Palestinians get are muted words of concern and calls for investigation, allowing Israel to continue slaughtering medics and emergency workers unabated. No justice. https://www.rt.com/news/615480-palestine-israel-medics-hunt/
Trump has threatened Iran over an ultimatum that likely cannot be met
Trump’s ultimatum to Iran appears to be moving the U.S. down a path to where war is the only outcome, as occurred in 1914 – an outcome which ultimately triggered WW1.
Strategic Culture Foundation, Alastair Crooke, April 7, 2025
What is understood now is that ‘we’re no longer playing chess’. There are no rules anymore.
Trump’s ultimatum to Iran? Colonel Doug Macgregor compares the Trump ultimatum to Iran to that which Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia in 1914: An offer, in short, that ‘could not be refused’. Serbia accepted nine out of the ten demands. But it refused one – and Austria-Hungary immediately declared war.
On 4 February, shortly after his Inauguration, President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM); that is to say, a legally binding directive requiring government agencies to carry out the specified actions precisely.
The demands are that Iran should be denied a nuclear weapon; denied inter-continental missiles, and denied too other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities. All these demands go beyond the NPT and the existing JCPOA. To this end, the NSPM directs maximum economic pressure be imposed; that the U.S. Treasury act to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero; that the U.S. work to trigger JCPOA Snapback of sanctions; and that Iran’s “malign influence abroad” – its “proxies” – be neutralised.
The UN sanctions snapback expires in October, so time is short to fulfil the procedural requirements to Snapback. All this suggests why Trump and Israeli officials give Spring as the deadline to a negotiated agreement.
Trump’s ultimatum to Iran appears to be moving the U.S. down a path to where war is the only outcome, as occurred in 1914 – an outcome which ultimately triggered WW1.
Might this just be Trump bluster? Possibly, but it does sound as if Trump is issuing legally binding demands such that he must expect cannot be met. Acceptance of Trump’s demands would leave Iran neutered and stripped of its sovereignty, at the very least. There is an implicit ‘tone’ to these demands too, that is one of threatening and expecting regime change in Iran as its outcome.
It may be Trump bluster, but the President has ‘form’ (past convictions) on this issue. He has unabashedly hewed to the Netanyahu line on Iran that the JCPOA (or any deal with Iran) was ‘bad’. In May 2014, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA at Netanyahu’s behest and instead issued a new set of 12 demands to Iran – including permanently and verifiably abandoning its nuclear programme in perpetuity and ceasing all uranium enrichment.
What is the difference between those earlier Trump demands and those of this February? Essentially they are the same, except today he says: If Iran “doesn’t make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before”.
Thus, there is both history, and the fact that Trump is surrounded – on this issue at least – by a hostile cabal of Israeli Firsters and Super Hawks. Witkoff is there, but is poorly grounded on the issues. Trump too, has shown himself virtually totalitarian in terms of any and all criticism of Israel in American Academia. And in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, he is fully supportive of Netanyahu’s far-right provocative and expansionist agenda.
These present demands regarding Iran also run counter to the 25 March 2025 latest annual U.S. Intelligence Threat Assessment that Iran is NOT building a nuclear weapon. This Intelligence Assessment is effectively disregarded. A few days before its release, Trump’s National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz clearly stated that the Trump Administration is seeking the “full dismantlement” of Iran's nuclear energy program: “Iran has to give up its program in a way that the entire world can see”, Waltz said. “It is time for Iran to walk away completely from its desire to have a nuclear weapon”.
On the one hand, it seems that behind these ultimata stands a President made “pissed off and angry” at his inability to end the Ukraine war almost immediately – as he first mooted – together with pressures from a bitterly fractured Israel and a volatile Netanyahu to compress the timeline for the speedy ‘finishing off’ of the Iranian ‘regime’ (which, it is claimed, has never been weaker). All so that Israel can normalise with Lebanon –and even Syria. And with Iran supposedly ‘disabled’, pursue implementation of the Greater Israel project to be normalised across the Middle East.
Which, on the other hand, will enable Trump to pursue the ‘long-overdue’ grand pivot to China. (And China is energy-vulnerable – regime change in Tehran would be a calamity, from the Chinese perspective).
To be plain, Trump’s China strategy needs to be in place too, in order to advance Trump’s financial system re-balancing plans. …………………………………………………………………………………….. https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/04/07/break-leg-that-old-mafia-warning-trump-has-threatened-iran-over-ultimatum-that-likely-cannot-be-met/
Russia pledges to help resolve Iran-US nuclear tensions
April 7 2025 –https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8936749/russia-pledges-to-help-resolve-iran-us-nuclear-tensions/
Russia is ready to do all it could to help resolve tensions between the United States and Iran around Tehran’s nuclear program, the Kremlin says.
Moscow has repeatedly offered to mediate between the two sides after warnings of military action against Iran by US President Donald Trump have rattled nerves across the region.
“We are in constant consultations with our Iranian partners, including on the topic of the nuclear deal,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
“This process will continue, including in the near future. And, of course, Russia is ready to make every effort, to do everything possible to contribute to this problem’s resolution by political and diplomatic means.”
During his first term, Trump withdrew the US from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed strict limits on Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Iran says it needs nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and denies it is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
Tehran has pushed back against Trump’s demands for direct talks, with a senior Iranian official issuing a warning over the weekend to neighbours that host US bases that they could be in the firing line.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said last week that Trump’s comments about bombing Iran only served to “complicate the situation” and cautioned that strikes could be “catastrophic” for the wider region.
Russia has for the most part refrained from such sharp criticism of Trump.
President Vladimir Putin has moved quickly since Trump took office to repair relations with the US in a rapprochement viewed with concern by Ukraine and its European allies.
Moscow has also deepened ties with Tehran since the start of the full-scale conflict in Ukraine with the two signing a strategic partnership treaty in January.
Trump claims US held direct nuclear talks with Iran
Aljazeera, 7 April 25
The US president makes the claim in a media conference with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, while also threatening Tehran.
President Donald Trump has announced that the United States has begun direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme, after Tehran had earlier dismissed Washington’s calls for the talks.
“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable,” he added, without providing further details.
Trump also warned that Iran would be in “great danger” if diplomatic efforts to curb its nuclear ambitions failed, adding that Tehran “can’t have nuclear weapons”.
Earlier this month, Trump told NBC News: “If they [Iran] don’t make a deal, there will be bombing”. He added that the bombing would be “the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Trump’s announcement of direct talks with Tehran would not be to Netanyahu’s “liking”, as the Israeli leader has long wanted to simply bomb Iran, said Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst.
“Trump has wanted a deal for a long time,” Bishara said. However, “Netanyahu certainly thinks Iran’s defences have been weakened by last year’s Israeli air strikes on Iran. And he sees this as a great opportunity, with US support, for Israel to finish off Iran.”
“In reality, Trump doesn’t want to enter a war with Iran while he is in the midst of trade wars with the rest of the world,” Bishara added.
‘Meaningless talks’
Over the weekend Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi described the prospect of direct negotiations with the US on Tehran’s nuclear programme as “meaningless”.
Araghchi’s remarks came after Trump said last month in a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he hoped there would be a negotiation between the countries.
Tehran, which maintains that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon, has so far rejected Washington’s overtures, but has said it is open to indirect diplomacy – a stance repeated by Araghchi in Sunday’s statement.
In 2018, during his first presidency, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, which had placed strict curbs on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran says its nuclear activities are solely for civilian purposes. Israel, the US’s top ally in the region, is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
Netanyahu calls for Palestinians to leave Gaza
Speaking next to Netanyahu, who has been issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Gaza, Trump suggested that the war in Gaza could soon come to an end……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/7/trump-claims-direct-us-talks-with-iran-on-nuclear-deal-have-begun
Iran rejects ‘meaningless’ direct talks with US
As war of words over nuclear weapons deal escalates, FM Araghchi says he wants talks on ‘equal footing’.
6 Apr 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/6/iran-foreign-minister-rejects-direct-talks-with-us
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has described the prospect of direct negotiations on its nuclear programme with the United States as “meaningless” amid mounting tensions between the two countries.
Araghchi’s remarks came in a statement on Sunday, after Trump said last month in a letter sent to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he hoped there would be a negotiation between their countries aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Trump upped the ante last week, saying: “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing.”
Araghchi questioned Washington’s sincerity in calling for negotiations, saying on Sunday, “If you want negotiations, then what is the point of threatening?”
Tehran, which maintains that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon, has so far rejected Washington’s overtures, but has said it is open to indirect diplomacy – a stance repeated by Araghchi in Sunday’s statement.
Araghchi said Iran wanted to negotiate on an “equal footing” with the US, describing it as “a party that constantly threatens to resort to force in violation of the UN Charter and that expresses contradictory positions from its various officials”.
In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump nixed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal between Iran and the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council that gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
Iran has since rolled back on its commitments under the agreement, amassing enough fissile material for multiple bombs, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which carries out inspections of Iranian nuclear sites.
Responding to Trump’s threat of war, Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on Saturday that the country was “ready” for war.
“We are not worried about war at all. We will not be the initiators of war, but we are ready for any war,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Salami as saying.
But Tehran’s position in the region appears to have weakened amid the ongoing war in Gaza and beyond, with Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon, and the toppling of another key partner, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, last year.
Iran says its nuclear activities are solely for civilian purposes. Israel, the top US ally in the region, is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
With US bombers at the ready, can Trump cut a deal with Iran and avoid a war?
The United States and Iran are once again on a collision course over the
Iranian nuclear program. In a letter dated early March, US President Donald
Trump urged Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to negotiate a
new deal.
The new deal would replace the defunct nuclear agreement
negotiated in 2015 between the United States, Iran and five other global
powers. Trump withdrew from that agreement, called the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA), during his first term.
Trump gave the Iranians a
two-month deadline to reach a new nuclear deal. If they don’t, the US will
bomb the country. In recent days, American B-2 bombers and warships have
been deployed to the region in a show of force. In response, Tehran has
agreed only to indirect negotiations. It has ruled out any direct talks
while under a US policy of “maximum pressure”.
Khamenei and his
generals have promised a “harsh response” to any military venture. Iran
has vowed to target all American bases in the region. France, one of key
negotiators in the 2015 deal, said this week a failure to secure a new deal
would make a military confrontation “almost inevitable”. In a positive
sign, however, Washington is reportedly “seriously considering” Iran’s
offer for indirect negotiations. And Trump is now suggesting Iran may
actually be open to direct talks.
The Conversation 5th April 2025 https://theconversation.com/with-us-bombers-at-the-ready-can-trump-cut-a-deal-with-iran-and-avoid-a-war-253828
Military confrontation ‘almost inevitable’ if Iran nuclear talks fail: French FM
Daily Mail 3rd April 2025 AFP
‘Our priority is to reach an agreement that verifiably and durably constrains the Iranian nuclear program,’ Jean-Noel Barrot told lawmakers
France’s foreign minister warned on Wednesday that a military confrontation with Iran would be “almost inevitable” if talks over Tehran’s nuclear programme failed.
“In the event of failure, a military confrontation would appear to be almost inevitable,” Jean-Noel Barrot said in parliament, adding that it would severely destabilise the region.
Earlier Wednesday, President Emmanuel Macron chaired a meeting on Iran.
US President Donald Trump has threatened that Iran will be bombed if it persists in developing nuclear weapons. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has promised to hit back………………………………………………………. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-14564181/Military-confrontation-inevitable-Iran-nuclear-talks-fail-French-FM.html
Trump’s State Department Would Support Literally Any Israeli Atrocity
It’s clear that Trump’s State Department spokeswoman has been instructed to respond to any and all questions about Israeli atrocities in Gaza by blaming everything on Hamas, without even pretending to care whether the allegations are true.
For some background, Israel has just been caught perpetrating an atrocity so monstrous and so abundantly well-evidenced that even the mainstream western press have felt obligated to report on it. Outlets like the Guardian and the BBC are covering the story of how 15 medical workers for the Red Crescent, Civil Defense, and the UN were apparently handcuffed and executed one by one by Israeli forces in Rafah before being buried in a mass grave. According to Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal, they were each shot more than 20 times.
(As an aside, the fact that Israeli forces have been known to bury the victims of their atrocities in order to hide the evidence is one of the many reasons why the official death toll from the Israeli onslaught in Gaza is definitely a massive undercount.)
Asked by the BBC’s Tom Bateman about these reports during a Monday press briefing, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce responded by babbling about how evil Hamas is and how they are to blame for everything bad that happens in Gaza.
Here’s a transcript of the exchange:
Bateman: On Gaza, the UN’s Humanitarian Affairs Office has said that 15 paramedics, Civil Defense, and a UN worker were killed — in their words, one by one — by the IDF. They have dug bodies up, they said, in a shallow grave that have been gathered up, and also vehicles in the sand. Have you got any assessment of what might have happened? And given the potential use of American weapons, is there any assessment of whether or not this complied with international law?
Bruce: Well, I can tell you that for too long Hamas has abused civilian infrastructure, cynically using it to shield themselves. Hamas’s actions have caused humanitarians to be caught in the crossfire. The use of civilians or civilian objects to shield or impede military operations is itself a violation of international humanitarian law, and of course we expect all parties on the ground to comply with international humanitarian law.
Bateman: But there’s specifically a question on any — it’s a question about accounting and accountability given there may have been the use of U.S. weapons, so it’s a question about the State Department rather than Hamas. Is there any actions —
Bruce: Well, every single thing that is happening in Gaza is happening because of Hamas — every single dynamic. I’ll say again — I’ve said it, I think, in every briefing — all of this could stop in a moment if Hamas returned all the hostages and the hostage bodies they are still holding and put down its weapons. There is one — one entity that could stop it for everyone in a moment, and that is Hamas. This is — all loss of life is regrettable — it’s key, obviously — whoever it is, wherever they live. And this has been the nature of what fuels Secretary Rubio and President Trump in their willingness to expend this kind of capital early on in this term to make a difference and to change the situation. So I think that’s — that is the one thing that remains clear in all of this.
At no time does Bruce attempt to deny that the atrocity happened or cast doubt on the veracity of the claims, only justifying Israel’s actions by blaming Hamas. Again, this is a story about medical workers being handcuffed and then executed by gunfire.
Tammy Bruce does this constantly; she did it in response to two separate questions at a press conference last week. When asked about Israel’s assassination of Palestinian journalists Hossam Shabat and Mohammad Mansour, Bruce responded by babbling about October 7 and saying “every single thing that’s happening is a result of Hamas and its choices to drag that region down into a level of suffering that has been excruciating and has caused innumerable deaths.” When asked about the fact that people in Gaza have been unable to access clean drinking water under the Israeli siege, Bruce said, “Hamas did not perform to make sure that the ceasefire could continue, that they did not do what they said they would do. So we know, of course, when it comes to the ground water, of course, this is — it’s a crisis. It’s exacerbated by the fact that you have a terrorist group that just doesn’t care.
She did it again at a press conference the week before when asked by journalist Said Arikat if the State Department considers Israel’s use of siege warfare on a civilian population a war crime, saying “For the horrible suffering of the Gazan people, we know where that sits: it sits with Hamas,” adding that the people of Gaza “have been suffering because of the choices that Hamas has made throughout the years.”
Arikat, by the way, has just tweeted that on Monday he was not called on to ask a question for the first time in nearly 25 years of attending State Department press briefings. He is one of the very few reporters at the State Department who regularly asks challenging questions about US foreign policy.
Trump’s bombing threat over Iran nuclear programme prompts backlash
Guardian, Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor, 31 Mar 25
Iranian officials accuse US president of breaching UN charter and say ‘violence brings violence’
Iran has reacted with outrage after Donald Trump said the country will be bombed if it does not accept US demands to constrain its nuclear programme.
The US president said on Sunday that if Iran “[doesn’t] make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”.
Trump’s latest threat – more explicit and violent than any made before – came after he sent a letter to Iran, as yet undisclosed, offering to hold talks on its nuclear programme. Iran had sent a reply to the US stating it was willing to hold indirect talks, officials confirmed.
Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, said of Trump’s threat: “The explicit threat of bombing Iran by the head of a country is clear contradiction to the essence of international peace and security.
Such a threat is a gross violation of the United Nations charter and a violation of the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards regime. Violence brings violence and peace creates peace, America can choose.”
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a sceptic about talks with the US, said Iran was “not overly concerned” by Trump’s words. “We consider it unlikely that such harm would come from outside. However, if any malicious act does occur, it will certainly be met with a firm
and decisive response,” he said.
Brig Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace force, said: “Someone in glass houses does not throw stones at anyone,” adding: “The Americans have at least 10 bases with 50,000 troops in the region, meaning they are sitting in a glass house.”
But the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, clearly had authority to keep the prospect of talks alive, saying Iran had already replied to the Trump letter through intermediaries in Oman and adding he knew the Iranian letter had now reached the US. Araghchi said direct talks were not possible while the US continued to threaten and bully Iran………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/trumps-bombing-threat-over-iran-nuclear-programme-prompts-backlash
Britain is aiding Israel’s nuclear force
Israeli ministers may not see their nuclear weapons just as weapons of last resort, to be used if the country were threatened with annihilation.
In the months after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, several Israeli policymakers and commentators—including heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu who was later suspended from the cabinet—suggested that Israel should use nuclear arms against Hamas fighters in Gaza.
DECLASSIFIED UK, MARK CURTIS, 26 March 2025
When the government recently published its arms exports data for the period July to September last year, one item caught the eye: a licence to sell Israel £7.1m worth of “technology for submarines”.
Israel’s submarines are believed to house nuclear arms.
The government data included a footnote stating that the licence related to “marketing and promotional purposes, including demonstration to potential customers, temporary exhibitions”.
Whatever that might mean, what is clearer is that British ministers have authorised 77 export licences to supply Israel with components for its submarines since 2010. This makes that category of equipment the fourth most numerous for all UK military exports to Israel.
The total value of these licences is £8.96m, Declassified has established. Two of the licences are, however, “open” rather than “single”, meaning that unlimited quantities and values of such equipment can be exported from Britain.
These licences for Israel’s submarines were excluded from the UK’s restrictions on exports of military equipment for Israel announced last September during its bombardment of Gaza.
Also excluded were components from Israel’s F-35 warplanes used to devastating effect in the territory.
Israeli military officials are doubtless pleased that British companies can continue to support their submarines – since their underwater and nuclear arms programmes are both being upgraded.
Nuclear dolphins
Research institute SIPRI estimates that Israel has at least 90 nuclear warheads but that the number could reach as high as 300.
While Israel continues to deny it has nuclear arms, SIPRI says it is “believed to be modernizing its nuclear arsenal and appears to be upgrading its plutonium production reactor site at Dimona” in the Negev desert.
The Stockholm-based institute also notes unconfirmed reports that “all or some of the submarines have been equipped to launch an indigenously produced nuclear-armed sea-launched variant of the Popeye cruise missile, giving Israel a sea-based nuclear strike capability”.
It “assesses that around 10 cruise missile warheads might be available for the submarine fleet”………………………………………………………………………….
‘Armed with nuclear weapons’
Israel’s most recent, and sixth, submarine, known as the INS Drakon, is the country’s largest and was unveiled last November at the Kiel shipyard in northern Germany where it was built, and from where it will be delivered to Israel later this year.
“Israeli nuclear submarines have the capability to be armed with nuclear weapons as well as to perform clandestine spying missions all over the world”, the Jerusalem Post reported at the time.
Israeli ministers may not see their nuclear weapons just as weapons of last resort, to be used if the country were threatened with annihilation.
In the months after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, several Israeli policymakers and commentators—including heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu who was later suspended from the cabinet—suggested that Israel should use nuclear arms against Hamas fighters in Gaza.
Whitehall in denial
The UK government has consistently refused to acknowledge the open secret that Israel possesses nuclear weapons. One reason Whitehall can be certain, however, is that it helped Israel acquire nuclear arms in the first place.
In the late 1950s, Britain sold Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water, a vital ingredient for the production of plutonium at Israel’s top secret Dimona nuclear site.
In fact, Declassified previously found that staff in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence have for over 40 years believed Israel has developed nuclear arms.
Britain has also aided Israel’s submarine development…………………………………………………………………….https://www.declassifieduk.org/britain-is-aiding-israels-nuclear-force/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Button&utm_campaign=ICYMI&utm_content=Button
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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