Did Israel explode a small nuclear bomb in Syria? Spike in radiation report says…
Story by support@india.com (India.com News Desk), 25 Dec 24, https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/did-israel-explode-a-small-nuclear-bomb-in-syria-spike-in-radiation-report-says/ar-AA1wqXyT
In a step that has shocked the whole world, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) carried out an airstrike on the weapons depot in Tartus, Syria on 16 December 2024. Through the massive strike, Israel reportedly destroyed the Scud missile facility. However, reports are speculating that the damage caused by the strike was much more and a small nuclear weapon might have been used. Here are the details you need to note about the Israeli strike on Syria.
As a result of the attack, an earthquake of magnitude 3 also occurred along with the massive explosion. The earthquake was so huge that it was felt up to Iznik in Turkey, 820 km away. Moreover, Russian media organization Sputnik had then said that Israel had targeted it with a new missile from a warship. However, some reports also claim that the B61 nuclear bomb developed by America was used here.
Reports have also added that the European Union’s Radioactive Environmental Monitoring surprisingly found that the amount of radiation increased in Turkey and Cyprus 20 hours after the intense blast, pointing towards a small nuclear attack.
Israeli army in the Golan Heights after UN extends peacekeeping mission between Syria, Israel
Israeli forces continued to operate along the Syria-Israel ceasefire line in the Golan Heights on Sunday (December 22) after the United Nations Security Council on Friday (December 20) extended a long-running peacekeeping mission between the two countries.
The UN mission was extended for six months and the security council expressed concern that military activities in the area could escalate tensions.
Ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
Since a lightning rebel offensive ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month, Israeli troops have moved into the demilitarized zone – created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war – that is patrolled by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
Israeli officials have described the move as a limited and temporary measure to ensure the security of Israel’s borders but have given no indication of when the troops might be withdrawn. Armed forces from Israel and Syria are not allowed in the demilitarized zone – a 400-square-km (155-square-mile) “Area of Separation” – under the ceasefire arrangement.
(With inputs from agencies)
US Military Supported Syrian Rebel Offensive That Toppled Assad Government
Geopolitical Economy, By Ben Norton, 12 Dec 24
Syrian rebel commanders have boasted that the US military helped them overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad.
They acknowledged this in a report published by major British newspaper The Telegraph, titled “US ‘prepared Syrian rebel group to help topple Bashar al-Assad’”.
The article revealed that a rebel group armed, trained, and funded by the United States, based in the south of Syria, collaborated with rebranded al-Qaeda in the north to jointly topple the Syrian government.
According to the report, the US military helped to create a Syrian militia called the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA). The US and UK armed and trained the RCA. The Pentagon paid its fighters a salary of $400 per month, which The Telegraph noted was “nearly 12 times what the soldiers in the now defunct Syrian army were paid”. (This was because illegal unilateral Western sanctions on Syria had crushed the country’s economy, causing high rates of inflation that decimated local purchasing power.)
The US military knew that an offensive was being planned to topple Assad, The Telegraph reported. The Pentagon pressured disparate rebel groups and mercenaries in southern Syria to unify behind the US-funded RCA.
In the lead-up to the assault, which was launched in November 2024, US military officers met with Syrian rebel commanders in the Al-Tanf base that the US had built on the border with Iraq………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/12/23/us-military-syria-rebels-assad/
Israel to Annex the West Bank – Why Now? And What are the Likely Scenarios?
By Ramzy Baroud / CounterPunch, December 23, 2024
Israel is getting ready to annex the occupied Palestinian West Bank. The annexation will be a major step backward on the road to Palestinian freedom and will likely serve as a catalyst for a new Palestinian uprising.
Though annexation has been on the Israeli agenda for years, this time around a ‘great opportunity’ – in the words of extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich – has presented itself and, from an Israeli point of view, cannot be missed.
“I hope we’ll have a great opportunity with the new US administration to create full normalization (of the Israeli occupation),” the minister was quoted as saying by Israeli media.
This is not the first time that Smotrich, among other Israeli extremists, has made the connection between Trump’s advent to the White House and the illegal expansion of Israel’s borders.
Two reasons make Israel’s far-right optimistic about Trump’s arrival: One, the Israeli experience during Trump’s first term in office, where the US president allowed Israel to claim sovereignty over illegal settlements, the Syrian Golan Heights, and occupied East Jerusalem; and, two, Trump’s more recent statement in the run-up to the elections.
Israel is “so tiny” on the map, Trump said while addressing the pro-Israeli group ‘Stop Antisemitism’ at an event last August, wondering: “Is there any way of getting more?” The statement, absurd by any definition, caused joy among Israeli politicians, who understood it to be a green right for further annexations.
Israel’s aims for colonial expansion also received a boost in recent days. Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria, Israel immediately began invading large swathes of the country, reaching as far as the Quneitra governorate, less than 20 kilometers away from the capital, Damascus.
What is taking place in Syria serves as a model of what to expect in the West Bank in coming months…………………………………………………………………………………………………
While such annexation will not change the legal status of the West Bank, it will have dire consequences for the millions of Palestinians living there, as annexation is likely to be followed by a violent campaign of ethnic cleansing, if not from the whole of the West Bank, certainly from large parts of it.
Annexation will also render the Palestinian Authority legally irrelevant – as it was created following the Oslo Accords to administer parts of the West Bank in anticipation of a future sovereignty, which never actualized. Will the PA agree to remain functional as part of the Israeli military administration of a newly annexed West Bank?
Palestinians will certainly resist, as they always do. The nature of the resistance will prove critical in the success or failure of the Israeli scheme. A popular Intifada, for example, will overstretch the Israeli military, which will likely use an unprecedented degree of violence to suppress Palestinians but will unlikely succeed.
Annexing the West Bank at a time that Palestine, in fact, the whole region is in turmoil, is a recipe for perpetual war, which, from the viewpoint of Smotrich and his ilk is the actual ‘great opportunity’, as it will secure their political survival for years to come.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/23/israel-to-annex-the-west-bank-why-now-and-what-are-the-likely-scenarios/
Pentagon Admits It’s Been Lying About the Number of Troops in Both Iraq and Syria
December 25, 2024, By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/12/23/pentagon-admits-its-been-lying-about-the-number-of-troops-in-both-iraq-and-syria/
The Pentagon said on Monday that the US has more troops deployed in Iraq than it has been disclosing, an admission that comes after it revealed there are significantly more US troops in Syria than the US has said.
For years, the Pentagon has said there are 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq. Last week, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder revealed the US was lying about the number of troops in Syria, saying the real number is 2,000.
In a statement meant to clarify the situation that was released on Monday, Ryder also said there were more than 2,500 US troops in Iraq but refused to say how many. “However, due to operations security and diplomatic considerations, we do not have any more specifics to provide,” Ryder said.
Ryder’s statement revealed that the number of US troops in Syria has been higher than publicly disclosed since 2020. “In addition to the approximately 900 baseline troops, there are also approximately 1,100 US military personnel in Syria that deploy for shorter durations as temporary enablers in support of force protection, transportation, maintenance, or other emerging operational requirements,” Ryder said.
“The numbers of these additional temporary forces have fluctuated over the past several years based on mission needs but in general have increased over time as the threat has increased to baseline forces,” he added.
Lying about the actual number of US troops in Syria goes back to at least the Trump administration. In 2020, James Jeffrey, the outgoing US envoy for Syria at the time, admitted his team was “always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there.” In 2019, after reversing an order to withdraw all troops from Syria, Trump agreed to keep 200 in the country. But Jeffrey said there was “a lot more” than that deployed.
In his statement on Monday, Ryder also said that “some additional temporary enablers” had been deployed alongside the 2,500 US troops in Iraq.
Sources told CNN that the US had been lying about the number of US troops in Syria because it didn’t want to anger neighboring countries, particularly Iraq, where the presence of US troops is strongly opposed by many political factions.
The sources said the US was worried if Iraqi officials found out the US had more troops in Syria than it was disclosing, officials would fear the same is happening in Iraq. Ryder’s statement that there are more than 2,500 US troops in Iraq will likely cause trouble for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who has been under significant pressure to get the US to leave.
Earlier this year, after a series of US airstrikes on Iraq, al-Sudani called for US troops to leave, and his government entered negotiations with the US. The two sides reached a deal that was announced in September, but it will only formally end the mission of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and says US troops will remain in the country under a “bilateral security partnership.”
Iran to hold nuclear talks with France, Germany, UK
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/24/iran-to-meet-with-germany-france-uk-in-nuclear-talks
The meeting follows an IAEA resolution denouncing Iran for what it called a lack of cooperation.
Iran says it will hold nuclear talks with officials from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom this week, amid escalating tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme.
The meeting, which is set to happen on Friday, was announced by Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, and UK officials confirmed the meeting.
“A range of regional and international issues, including the issues of Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the nuclear issue, will be discussed,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said.
Neither London nor Tehran said where the meeting would take place.
On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution denouncing Iran for what it called a lack of cooperation. The three European nations, whose representatives will meet Iranian officials, were among those voting for the resolution.
Nineteen countries out of the 35-member IAEA voted to censure Iran – a largely symbolic gesture – while 12 countries abstained. Russia, China, and Burkina Faso voted against the resolution. Thursday’s resolution marked the third time the United Nations body had taken such action since 2020.
The move came as tensions ran high over Iran’s nuclear programme, which critics fear is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon – something Tehran has repeatedly denied.
On Friday, Iran announced a “series of new and advanced centrifuges”, technology that refines enriched uranium into gas. “We will substantially increase the enrichment capacity with the utilisation of different types of advanced machines,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, Iran’s atomic energy organisation spokesman, told Iranian state TV.
Despite the announcement, Iran said it would continue to cooperate with the IAEA.
“We remain committed to taking every diplomatic step to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, including through snapback if necessary,” the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office told the AFP news agency.
In 2015, Iran reached an agreement with world powers, including the United States, to curb its nuclear programme due to concerns about the country potentially developing nuclear weapons.
But in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term, the US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and imposed sanctions on Iran – a move that stoked tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Since then, Tehran has scaled back its cooperation with the IAEA, deactivating surveillance devices put in place by the UN. Concurrently, Iran has increased its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iran has “begun implementation of preparatory measures” to cap its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. According to leaked reports from the IAEA, Iran is close to the 90 percent threshold needed to produce a nuclear warhead.
Privatising Syria: US Plans Post-Assad Selloff
Global Delinquents Kit Klarenberg, Dec 24, 2024
Following the abrupt fall of Bashar Assad’s government in Syria, much remains uncertain about the country’s future – including whether it can survive as a unitary state, or will splinter into smaller chunks in the manner of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. For the time being at least though, members of ultra-extremist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) appear highly likely to take key positions in whatever administrative structure sprouts from Bashar Assad’s ouster, after a decade-and-a-half of grinding Western-sponsored regime change efforts.
As Reuters reported December 12th, HTS is already “stamping its authority on Syria’s state with the same lightning speed that it seized the country, deploying police, installing an interim government and meeting foreign envoys.” Meanwhile, its bureaucrats – “who until last week were running an Islamist administration in a remote corner of Syria’s northwest” – have moved en masse “into government headquarters in Damascus.” Mohammed Bashir, head of HTS’ “regional government” in extremist-occupied Idlib, has been appointed the country’s “caretaker prime minister”.
However, despite the chaos and precariousness of post-Assad Syria, one thing seems assured – the country will be broken open to Western economic exploitation, at long last. This is clear from multiple mainstream reports, which state HTS has informed local and international business leaders it will “adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy, in a major shift from decades of corrupt state control” when in office.
As Alexander McKay of the Marx Engels Lenin Institute tells Global Delinquents, state-controlled parts of Syria’s economy may have been under Assad, but corrupt they weren’t. He believes a striking feature of the ongoing attacks on Syrian infrastructure from forces within and without the country, is economic and industrial sites are a recurrent target. Moreover, the would-be HTS-dominated government has done nothing to counter these broadsides, when “securing key economic assets is vital to societal reconstruction, and should therefore be a matter of priority”:
“We can see clearly what kind of country these ‘moderate rebels’ plan to build. Forces like HTS are allied with US imperialism and their economic approach will reflect this. Prior to the proxy war, the government pursued an economic approach that mixed public ownership and market elements. State intervention enabled a degree of political independence other nations in the region lack. Assad’s administration understood without an industrial base, being sovereign is impossible. The new ‘free market’ approach will see all of that utterly decimated.”
‘Global Economy’
Syria’s economic independence, and strength, under Assad’s rule, and the benefits reaped by average citizens as a result, were never acknowledged in the mainstream before or during the Western-fomented dirty war. Yet, countless reports from major international institutions amply underline this reality – which has now been brutally vanquished, never to return. For example, an April 2015 World Health Organization document noted how pre-war Damascus “had one of the best-developed healthcare systems in the Arab world.”
Not only that, but per a 2018 UN investigation, “universal, free healthcare” was extended to all Syrian citizens, who “enjoyed some of the highest levels of care in the region.” Education was likewise free, and before the conflict, “an estimated 97% of primary school-aged Syrian children were attending class and Syria’s literacy rates were thought to be at over 90% for both men and women [emphasis added].” By 2016, millions were out of school.
A UN Human Rights Council report two years later noted prior to 2011, Syria “was the only country in the Middle East region to be self-sufficient in food production,” its “thriving agricultural sector” contributing “about 21%” to GDP 2006 – 2011. Civilians’ daily caloric intake “was on par with many Western countries,” with prices kept affordable via state subsidy. Meanwhile, the country’s economy was “one of the best performing in the region, with a growth rate averaging 4.6%” annually.
At the time that report was written, Damascus had been reduced to heavy reliance on imports by Western sanctions in many sectors, and even then was barely able to buy or sell much in the way of anything, as the measures amounted to an effective embargo. Simultaneously, US military occupation of a resource-rich third of Syria cut off the government’s access to its own oil reserves and wheat. The situation only worsened with the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act’s passing in June 2020………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
EU and US-backed governments across the former Yugoslavia have enforced an endless array of neoliberal “reforms”, in order to ensure an “investor-friendly” environment locally for wealthy Western oligarchs and corporations. In lockstep, low wages and lacking employment opportunities locally stubbornly endure or worsen, while living costs constantly rise, producing mass depopulation, among other destructive effects. All along too, US officials intimately implicated in the country’s breakup have brazenly sought to personally enrich themselves from privatization of former state industries.
Does such a fate await Damascus? For Alexander McKay, the answer is a resounding “yes”. Now “free”, Syria will be forcedly made “dependent upon imports from the West” evermore. This not only fattens the Empire’s bottom line, but “severely restricts the freedom of any Syrian government to act with any degree of independence.” He notes similar efforts were undertaken worldwide throughout the post-1989 era of US unipolarity. This was well underway in Russia during the 1990s, “until a turnaround started under Putin, post 2000”:
“The aim is to reduce Syria to the same status as Lebanon, with an economy controlled by imperial forces, an army used primarily for internal repression, and an economy no longer able to produce anything but merely serve as a market for commodities produced elsewhere, and site of resource extraction. The US and its allies do not want independent development of any nation’s economy. We must hope the Syrian people can resist this latest act of neo-colonialism.” https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/privatising-syria-us-plans-post-assad?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=552010&post_id=153534171&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Israeli Attacks in Gaza Kill at Least 32 More Palestinians Over 24 Hours
Many children were killed by Israeli strikes across the Strip on Sunday
by Dave DeCamp, December 22, 2024 , https://news.antiwar.com/2024/12/22/israeli-attacks-in-gaza-kill-at-least-32-more-palestinians-over-24-hours/
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli attacks killed at least 32 Palestinians and wounded 54 over the previous 24-hour period as children were slaughtered across the Strip.
The ministry’s numbers only account for dead and wounded Palestinians who arrived at hospitals and don’t factor in those missing under the rubble or in besieged areas rescuers are unable to access.
“There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry said.
Israeli attacks on Sunday included the bombing of a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. According to Gaza’s Civil Defense, the strike killed at least eight Palestinians, including four children.
Israeli strikes also targeted Jabalia, northern Gaza, which has been under total siege since early October as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. According to Al Jazeera, the strikes killed at least five Palestinians, including four children.
Another child was killed by an Israeli drone attack on a group of people in the Burej refugee camp in central Gaza.
Overnight Israeli strikes hit a home in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, at least five were killed, and women and children were among the dead.
A day earlier, Al Jazeera reported that an Israeli strike that hit a home in Jabalia on Friday evening killed at least 12, including seven children. “All of the martyrs are from the same family, including seven children, the oldest aged six,” Gaza’s Civil Defense said in a telegram post about the strike.
Later on Sunday, Israeli strikes hit the al-Mawasi camp, which Israel has labeled a so-called “safe zone” but has come under repeated IDF attacks. At least seven were killed in the camp by strikes that targeted tents.
The Health Ministry said the latest violence brought its recorded death toll since October 2023 to 45,259 and the number of wounded to 107,627.
In October, a group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza estimated in an open letter to President Biden that the US-backed Israeli onslaught has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, a total that includes indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who led the letter, told Antiwar.com in a recent interview that the estimate was the bare minimum they came up with by looking at the available data.
Israel’s War on Gaza Is a War on Children
Children in Gaza are not merely collateral damage; they are often actively being targeted.
By Henry A. Giroux , Truthout, December 21, 2024
In November, over a year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a report by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management produced a grim statistic: “Nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believe their death is imminent — and nearly half of them want to die.”
It is no wonder why the statistic, which came from a survey of families with disabled, injured or unaccompanied children, is so bleak. Amnesty International’s recent report lays bare the magnitude of the crisis: “Israel’s actions … have brought Gaza’s population to the brink of collapse. Its brutal military offensive had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, including over 13,300 children, and injured over 97,000 more, by 7 October 2024, many of them in direct or deliberately indiscriminate attacks, often wiping out entire multigenerational families.”
This unfathomable suffering — inflicted disproportionately on women and children — represents a moral abomination, a political travesty, and a militaristic cruelty of the highest order. The destruction of lives, institutions and essential humanitarian infrastructure goes beyond the annihilation of a people; it constitutes an assault on future generations and the very fabric of our shared humanity. Genocidal language dehumanizes and legitimizes the unthinkable: an indiscriminate war waged against the most defenseless — children.
Israel’s war on Palestinian youth is genocidal — not only in the starvation, maiming and unimaginable killing of children but in its relentless assault on any viable notion of what it means for these young people to be valued, human and alive with hope. It seeks to strip them of their dignity, rendering them invisible and unworthy in the eyes of the world, as if their lives are expendable, their dreams inconsequential. This overpowering violence amounts to what we may term childcide, which is the deliberate or systematic destruction of children, whether through direct violence, neglect, or the conditions of war and oppression that render them uniquely vulnerable. It is a traumatic manifestation of collective failure — a war against innocence, in which the fragile promise of childhood is extinguished before it can bloom. In Gaza, where children face relentless bombings, displacement and deprivation, childcide becomes not just an act of violence but a moral collapse: the erasure of futures, dreams and entire generations. It is a crime not only against the child but against humanity itself, leaving behind a void that no words can fill and no justice can fully repair…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://truthout.org/articles/israels-war-on-gaza-is-a-war-on-children/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=bdbe0251d9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_12_21_08_06_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-5f034c9084-650192793
Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza
Authorities’ Widespread Deprivation of Water Threatens Survival
Human Rights Watch 19 Dec 24
Israeli authorities have deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.
In doing so, Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide. The pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.
- Governments and international organizations should take all measures to prevent genocide in Gaza, including discontinuing military assistance, reviewing bilateral agreements and diplomatic relations, and supporting the International Criminal Court and other accountability efforts.
(Jerusalem) – Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinian civilians in Gaza of adequate access to water since October 2023, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths and thus committing the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
In the 179-page report, “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water,” Human Rights Watch found that Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinians in Gaza of access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival. Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies.
“Water is essential for human life, yet for over a year the Israeli government has deliberately denied Palestinians in Gaza the bare minimum they need to survive,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “This isn’t just negligence; it is a calculated policy of deprivation that has led to the deaths of thousands from dehydration and disease that is nothing short of the crime against humanity of extermination, and an act of genocide.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 66 Palestinians from Gaza, 4 employees of Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), 31 healthcare professionals, and 15 people working with United Nations agencies and international aid organizations in Gaza. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery, photographs, and videos captured between the beginning of the hostilities in October 2023 and September 2024, as well as data collected and estimates produced by doctors, epidemiologists, humanitarian aid organizations, and water and sanitation experts.
Human Rights Watch concluded that Israeli authorities have intentionally created conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza in whole or in part. This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to one of the five “acts of genocide” under the Genocide Convention of 1948. Genocidal intent may also be inferred from this policy, coupled with statements suggesting some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, and therefore the policy may amount to the crime of genocide.
Immediately after the attacks in southern Israel by Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups in Gaza on October 7, 2023, which Human Rights Watch has found amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israeli authorities cut all electricity and fuel to the Gaza Strip. On October 9, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, stating: “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”
That same day, and for weeks thereafter, Israeli authorities cut off all water and blocked fuel, food, and humanitarian aid from entering the strip. Israeli authorities continue to restrict the entry of water, fuel, food, and aid into Gaza and to cut Gaza’s electricity, which is required to operate life-sustaining infrastructure. This continued even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024 ordering Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians in Gaza from genocide and, in so doing, provide humanitarian aid, specifying in March that this includes water, food, electricity, and fuel. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-extermination-acts-genocide-gaza
Pentagon admits massive surge of US troops in Syria
https://www.rt.com/news/609720-pentagon-reveals-syria-troops/ 21 Dec 24
Washington insists it was a coincidence that reinforcements were sent before the collapse of President Bashar Assad’s government
The US has revealed that it has more than doubled its military presence in Syria, with a Pentagon spokesman saying that he “just recently learned” there were in fact roughly 2,000 American forces deployed in the country, rather than 900 troops as previously reported.
For years, the Pentagon had maintained that “about 900” US troops were stationed in the country, and officials continued to repeat this figure even after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad on December 8.
However, during a press conference on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that “we recently learned that those numbers [are] higher.”
The US military has been active in Syria since as early as 2014, ostensibly to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS) terrorists, and has flown countless airstrikes against select militant groups and, at times, Syrian government forces.
Under President Barack Obama, Washington doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to an array of jihadist rebel factions seeking to overthrow Assad, although the effort later fizzled following Russian and Iranian military involvement at the request of Damascus.
In 2019, President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw, but Pentagon officials pushed back, and he backtracked later that year, saying: “We’re keeping the oil… We left troops behind only for the oil.”
Since then, the US has kept some 900 troops scattered across several bases. Syrian officials have repeatedly accused the Pentagon of “stealing” the country’s oil reserves from provinces in the northeast, where American forces have been embedded with Kurdish militia groups.
Earlier this month, Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a surprise offensive across the country, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to resign as president and seek asylum in Russia.
On Friday, Washington sent a delegation to Damascus for the first time since 2012, and announced it will no longer offer a $10 million bounty for the HTS leader.
Overnight Israeli Strike In Syria So Large It Caused Earthquake
by Tyler Durden, Tuesday, Dec 17, 2024
Days ago Israel began warning that it will use large bunker buster munitions to begin destroying the former Syrian Army’s underground missile and weapons storehouses.
This has begun in the overnight hours, with Israeli warplanes pummeling air defense systems and ammunition depots in Damascus and the coastal city of Tartous, near where a Russian naval base is located. The strike on Tartous resulted in the single biggest explosion seen in Syria in years, unleashing a fireball and mushroom cloud so large it led to quick speculation it could have been a tactical nuke (which widespread reports are denying).
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) described that Israeli warplanes hit air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots” as part of a bid to degrade and disable Syria’s military capability. SOHR also called it the “the heaviest strikes” on the region in over a decade.
The Telegraph wrote that “A 3.1 magnitude tremor was reported by the Geographic Survey of Israel’s seismology department at 11.49pm on Sunday night in the region of the bombings.”
“The explosions in Tartous were extremely loud,” Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from inside the country, additionally described. “Some experts are saying that might probably mean it was a chemical weapons production house.”
Other sites which were bombed overnight were radar and air defense systems outside of Damascus, around the Qaisioun mountain which dominates the background of the capital.
In total there have been an estimated 600 Israeli strikes over the course of eight days. Some of them began immediately upon Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entering the environs of Damascus as President Assad fled the country.
An Israeli broadcast correspondent from Kann previously wrote that “An Israeli source tells me: Israel’s goal is to destroy everything from Assad’s army that could fall into the hands of the rebels – from tanks to missiles. We are destroying the equipment of the Assad army.”
Jets and aerial equipment, and runways at bases are being obliterated. Part of Israel’s aim also seems to be preventing pro-Iranian entities from ever popping up again in Syria, and to finally and definitively dismantle Hezbollah and Shia militias’ arms networks. It’s also unclear what kind of future government will dominate Syria – most likely a hardline Sunni one.
Trump And Israel Can’t Wait To Start Bombing Iran
Caitlin Johnstone, Dec 18, 2024
Both Israel and the incoming Trump administration are reportedly eager to start bombing Iran ASAP now that Assad’s out of the way.
Israeli media reports that the IDF now sees airstrikes on Iran as much easier to execute now that its pilots don’t have to worry about Syrian air defenses along the way, while The Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump team is weighing its options for airstrikes on Iran to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon (which there’s no evidence Iran is currently trying to do).
A new article from The Washington Post titled “Syria’s collapse and Israeli attacks leave Iran exposed” reports that “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled a desire to capitalize on gains against Hamas and Hezbollah and take on Tehran more aggressively under a new U.S. administration.” The article notes that Trump has expressed openness to war with Iran, saying that “anything can happen”.
This comes as the al-Qaeda affiliates who captured Damascus assure the world that Syria will no longer allow itself to be used as a launchpad for attacks against Israel.
After Assad was ousted I got a bunch of weirdos in my comments claiming that Israel was somehow sad about this development, because Israel and Assad were secretly on the same side. This is one of the dumbest conspiracy theories I’ve been asked to believe in a long time, and I was asked to believe it not by crazy QAnoners or the liberal mass media but by a sector of pro-Palestine leftoids who also love NATO.
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The US hates al-Qaeda, then loves al-Qaeda, then hates al-Qaeda, then loves al-Qaeda. They split up, they get back together, they split up again. “We were on a break!” “We were not on a break!” Will they or won’t they? Keep watching and find out!………………………………………
Israel supporters will tell you antisemitism is one of the biggest problems in the world and then if you ask them for examples of where dangerous antisemitism is occurring in our society they’ll list things like the United Nations, Amnesty International, Ireland, and the pope.
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I often see questions like “Why are the billionaires destroying the world like this? What’s the point of amassing all that wealth if you’re just going to spend the rest of your life in some underground bunker?”………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Becoming a billionaire and becoming a heroin addict are both irrational destructive behaviors driven by irrational internal dynamics. The only difference is that the billionaires are taking the rest of us with them. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/trump-and-israel-cant-wait-to-start?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=153285034&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus
by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 17 December 2024, Translation
Roger Lagassé
With surprising aplomb, the international press assures us that we are not witnessing a military change of regime in Syria, but a revolution overthrowing the Syrian Arab Republic. The presence of the Turkish army and US special forces is hidden from us. We are bombarded with propaganda that has been denied several times about the crimes attributed to “Bashar”. Cannibal throat-cutters are transformed into respectable revolutionaries. Once again, the international press is consciously lying to us.
In 11 days, the Syrian Arab Republic, which had valiantly resisted attacks by jihadists supported by the largest coalition in history since 2011, was overthrown. So what happened?
First of all, since October 15, 2017, the United States has organized a siege of Syria, prohibiting all trade with it and prohibiting the United Nations from participating in its reconstruction [1]. This strategy was extended, in 2020, to Lebanon with the Caesar Act [2].
We, members of the European Union, have all participated in this crime. The majority of Syrians were malnourished. The pound had collapsed: what was worth 1 pound before the war, in 2011, was worth 50,000 when Damascus fell (the pound was revalued three days later thanks to an injection of Qatari money). The same causes always have the same effects, Syria was defeated like Iraq before it, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright congratulated herself on having caused the death of half a million Iraqi children from disease and malnutrition.
On the other hand, if it was the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) who took Damascus, they were not the ones who won militarily. On November 27, HTC, armed by Qatar and supervised by the Turkish army disguised as the “Syrian National Army” (SNA), took control of the M4 highway which served as a ceasefire line. In addition, HTC and Türkiye had very high-performance drones operated by Ukrainian advisers. Finally, HTC took with it the Uighur colony of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) which had been entrenched in al-Zanbaki for 8 years [3]. The Israeli, Russian and Chinese theaters of operation have therefore merged.
Then, these forces attacked Aleppo, until then defended by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The latter withdrew without a word, leaving a small garrison of the Syrian Arab Army to defend the city. Faced with the disproportion of forces, the Syrian government ordered its troops to withdraw to Hama, which they did on November 29, after a brief battle.
On November 30, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad went to Russia. Not to attend the exam that his son Hafez was taking at Moscow University where he is continuing his studies, but to call for help. The Russian forces in Syria could only bomb the jihadists’ convoys because they are only airborne. They therefore tried to block the road to HTC and Turkey. They could not intervene on the ground against them. Aleppo was well and truly lost. Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following his country’s tradition [4], has never acknowledged the loss of the Ottoman territories of Greece (Thessaloniki), the island of Cyprus, Syria (Aleppo) and Iraq (Mosul).
With dormant jihadist cells having been reactivated by Türkiye, the already exhausted Syrian Arab Army had to fight on all fronts at once. This is what General Maher el-Assad (the president’s brother) tried to do, in vain.
On December 2, General Jasper Jeffers III, commander in chief of the United States Special Forces (UsSoCom), arrives in Beirut. Officially, he comes to monitor the implementation of the oral Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire. Given his functions, it is obvious that this will only be part of his mission. He will supervise the capture of Damascus by the Turks behind HTC.
On December 5, the United States relaunches at the United Nations Security Council their accusations against President Bashar al-Assad of using chemical weapons to repress his own people. They ignore the very many objections, testimonies and investigations that have shown that they are nothing more than war propaganda. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launch an operation to destroy the equipment and fortifications of the Syrian Arab Army. In four days, 480 bombings sink the fleet and set fire to armories and warehouses. Simultaneously, ground teams assassinate the country’s leading scientists.
After showing journalists around the empty Syrian fortifications along the coast, Benny Kata, a local military commander, tells his guests: “It is clear that we will stay here for a while. We are prepared for it.”
The IDF is already invading Syria a little more, beyond the Golan ceasefire line that it occupies. It announces that it will create a new buffer zone on Syrian territory, to protect the current buffer zone, in short to annex it. In addition, they annexed Mount Hermon so that they could monitor the entire region………………………………
Meanwhile, according to the United Nations, more than a million Syrians are trying to flee their country. They do not believe that the HTC jihadists have suddenly become civilized.
The author of this article, Thierry Meyssan, was an advisor to the Libyan and then Syrian authorities for nine years. From this experience, he produced a fundamental work on Western policy in the Middle East: Before Our Very Eyes, Fake Wars and Big Lies: From 9/11 to Donald Trump.
Blinken Confirms the US Is in Direct Contact With al-Qaeda-Linked HTS
By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com, December 16, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/12/15/blinken-confirms-the-us-is-in-direct-contact-with-al-qaeda-linked-hts/
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that the US has been in direct contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a US-designated terror organization that grew out of al-Qaeda in Syria and recently led the offensive that overthrew former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“Yes, we have been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said on Saturday, confirming earlier reports that said the US was talking to HTS. “Our message to the Syrian people is this: We want them to succeed, and we’re prepared to help them do so.”
HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, are overseeing the new “transitional” government in Syria. Blinken and other US officials have celebrated the ouster of Assad and made clear they’re willing to work with Julani despite his past as an ISIS and al-Qaeda leader.
Julani, who has been going by his real name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has been presenting himself as a moderate in an effort to gain support from the West and began a rebranding campaign in 2016 by claiming his former group, the al-Nusra Front, was cutting ties with al-Qaeda. At the time, he thanked the “commanders of al-Qaeda for having understood the need to break ties.”
In 2017, Julani merged his group with several other Islamist factions to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the US State Department designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 2018. The US also placed a $10 million bounty on Julani’s head.
The Biden administration is reportedly considering removing the terror designation from HTS, which would allow the US to provide significant aid to an HTS-led government. Blinken released a statement a few days ago outlining conditions for US support.
“The United States reaffirms its full support for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition. This transition process should lead to credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance that meets international standards of transparency and accountability,” Blinken said.
While the US is flexible with HTS’s designation, it frequently points to the terror designations of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to justify Israeli attacks that slaughter huge numbers of civilians.
Finding the Unmentionable: Amnesty International, Israel and Genocide
Binoy Kampmark, December 16, 2024, https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/16/finding-the-unmentionable-amnesty-international-israel-and-genocide/
It was bound to happen. With continuing operations in Gaza, and increasingly violent activities being conducted against Palestinians in the occupied territories, human rights organisations are making increasingly severe assessments of Israel’s warring cause. While the world awaits the findings of the International Court of Justice on whether Israel’s campaign, as argued by South Africa, amounts to genocide, Amnesty International has already reached its conclusions.
In a 296-page report sporting the ominous title “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”, the human rights body, after considering the events in Gaza between October 2023 and July 2024, identified a “pattern of conduct” that indicated genocidal intent. These included, among other things, persistent direct attacks on civilians and objects “and deliberately indiscriminate strikes over the nine-month period, wiping out entire families repeatedly launched at times when these strikes would result in high numbers of casualties”; the nature of the weapons used; the speed and scale of destruction to civilian objects and infrastructure (homes, shelters, health facilities, water and sanitation infrastructure, agricultural land”; the use of bulldozing and controlled demolitions; and the use of “incomprehensible, misleading and arbitrary ‘evacuation’ orders’”.
The report does much to focus on statements made from the highest officials to the common soldiery to reveal the mental state necessary to reveal genocide. 102 statements made by members of the Knesset, government officials and high-ranking commanders “dehumanized Palestinians, or called for, or justified genocidal acts or other crimes under international law against them.” The report also examined 62 videos, audio recordings and photographs posted online featuring gleeful Israeli soldiers rejoicing in the “destruction of Gaza or the denial of essential services to people in Gaza, or celebrated the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities, including through controlled demolitions, in some cases without apparent military necessity.”
From its alternative universe, the Israeli public relations machine drew from its own agitprop specialists, working on mangling the language of the report. The formula is familiar: attack the authors first, not their premises. “The deplorable and fanatical organisation Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated response that is entirely based on lies,” came the howl from Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein.
Other methods of repudiation involve detaching Hamas and its war with Israel from any historical continuum, not least the fact that it was aided, supported and backed by Israel for years as a counter to Fatah in the West Bank. Isolating Hamas as a terrorist aberration also serves to treat it as alien, artificially foreign and not part of any resistance movement against suffocating Israeli occupation and strangulation. They, so goes this argument, are genocidal, and countering such a body can never be, by any stretch, genocidal. The pro-Israeli group NGO Monitor abides by this line of reasoning, calling allegations of genocide against Israel “a reversal of the actual and clearly established intent of Hamas and its allies (including its patron, Iran), to wipe Israel off the map”.
Israel’s closest ally and sponsor, the United States, proved predictable in rejecting the findings while still claiming to respect the humanitarian line. The US State Department’s principal deputy spokesman, Vedant Patel, expresseddisagreement “with the conclusions of such a report. We had said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded.” Patel did, however, pay lip service to the “vital role that civil society organizations like Amnesty International and human rights groups and NGOs play in providing information and analysis as it relates to Gaza and what’s going on.” Vital, but only up to a point.
Far less guarded assessments can be found in the American pro-Israeli chatter sphere. These follow the usual pattern. Orde Kittrie, senior fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a name that can only imply that crimes committed in such a cause are bound to be justifiable, offers a neat illustration. Amnesty, he argues, “systematically and repeatedly mischaracterizes both the facts and the law.” Kittrie suggests his own mischaracterisation by parroting the IDF’s line that Hamas had “increased casualty counts by illegally using Palestinian civilian shields and by hiding weapons and war fighters in and below homes, hospitals, mosques, and other buildings.” This conveniently ignores that point that the numbers are not necessarily proof of genocidal intent, though it helps.
The report also notes that, even in the face of such tactics by Hamas, Israel was still “obligated to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid attacks that would be indiscriminate or disproportionate.”
Amnesty International’s report is yet another addition to the gloomy literature on the subject. Human Rights Watch, in November, pointed to violations of the laws of war, crimes against humanity, and the provisional measures of the ICJ issued urging Israel to abide by the obligations imposed by the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem stated in no uncertain terms in October that “Israel intends to forcibly displace northern Gaza’s residents by committing some of the gravest crimes under the laws of war”.
Battling over the designation of whether a campaign is genocidal can act as a distraction, a field of quibbles for paper pushing pedants. The “specific intent” in proof must be unequivocally demonstrated and beyond any other reasonable inference. A smokescreen is thereby deployed that risks masking the broader ambit of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But no amount of pedantry and disagreement can arrest the sense that Israel’s lethal conduct, whatever threshold it may reach in international law, is directed at destroying not merely Palestinian life but any worthwhile sense of a viable sovereignty. Amnesty Israel, while rejecting the central claim of the parent organisation’s report did make one concession: the country’s brutal response following October 7, 2023 “may amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.”
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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