Middle East Eye reported last week that Qaani was alive and unhurt but under guard and being questioned about apparent security breaches surrounding the killing of Nasrallah.
Middle East Eye sources say Iranian authorities have serious suspicions about a major security breach in Qaani’s office, though none of MEE’s sources suggested Qaani was involved. Iranian authorities have not commented on reports that Qaani was questioned.
I used to be able to write individual articles about the individual bad things the US empire is involved in around the world. These days I’m increasingly finding it necessary to cram a bunch of them into a single daily write-up to touch on as many of them as I can.
(October 2, 2024)
Nasrallah‘s assassination followed two weeks of precise Israeli strikes that have destroyed weapons sites, eliminated half of Hezbollah‘s leadership council and decimated its top military command.
On Thursday, Iranian sources revealed that the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Esmail Qaani, is under investigation on suspicion of espionage, after his chief of staff, Ehsan Shafiqi, was suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Nilforoushan, who had flown into Beirut that evening from Tehran, was taken directly from the plane to the operations room beneath the residential neighbourhood of Haret Hreik, the sources said. He arrived there before Nasrallah.
The strike that targeted the meeting took place shortly after Nasrallah entered the room, the sources said.
“The breach was 100 percent Iranian and there is no question about this part,” a source close to Hezbollah told MEE.
Iranian state media announced Nilforoushan’s death as a “martyr” who died alongside Nasrallah.
Sources close to Hezbollah told MEE that Qaani was in Lebanon and had been expected to attend the Shura Council meeting at Safieddine‘s invitation on the day of the air strike.
But Qaani apologised and backed out of the meeting shortly before it began, they said.
وكانت قوات الأمن المصرية قد فضت الوقفة السلمية التي نظمها عدد من المواطنين على كورنيش النيل في القاهرة، حيث كانوا يحملون أعلام البلدين ولافتات ورقية تندد بالمجازر وتدعم الشعبين اللبناني والفلسطيني. وقد تم القبض على المشاركين في الوقفة بينهن عددا من الفتيات واقتيادهم إلى أحد أقسام الشرطة بالقاهرة، ويجري حالياً رصد وتوثيق أسماء المعتقلين.
يُذكر أن السلطات المصرية ما زالت تحتجز عدداً كبيراً من المواطنين الذين تم اعتقالهم في أكتوبر من العام الماضي، أثناء المظاهرات التي اندلعت في القاهرة والإسكندرية في نهاية الشهر ذاته، بناءً على دعوة الرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسي، حيث تم اعتقال العشرات وحبسهم احتياطياً حتى الآن.
تدين الشبكة المصرية لحقوق الإنسان اعتقال المواطنين الذين يعبرون سلمياً عن دعمهم للأشقاء في فلسطين المحتلة ولبنان، ورفضهم للحرب على البلدين، وتطالب بسرعة الإفراج عنهم.
Egyptian Public Prosecution النيابة العامة المصرية
المجلـس القومـى لحقـوق الإنسـان
الصفحة الرسمية لوزارة الداخلية
مكتب النائب العام مدينه الرحاب
United Nations Human Rights
UN News Arabic – أخبار الأمم المتحدة
قطاع مصلحة السجون طرة البلد
According to the London-based Egyptian Network for Human Rights, a small group of young people held a protest on the Nile Corniche in Cairo on Monday, carrying Palestinian and Lebanese flags and banners condemning the deadly Israeli onslaught on Gaza and Lebanon.
Citing eyewitness accounts, the rights group said several participants were detained by security forces, but the exact number and names have yet to be confirmed.
“The Egyptian Network for Human Rights condemns the arrest of citizens peacefully expressing their support for their brothers and sisters in occupied Palestine and Lebanon and their opposition to the war on both countries, and calls for their immediate release,” the group said in a statement shared with Middle East Eye.
The Gaza health ministry has demanded that Israel provide details about their identities and how they were killed after Israel sent the bodies across the border loaded into a container.
Health officials at Khan Younis‘ Nasser Hospital urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to intervene and retrieve the information from Israel.
Die venezolanischen Behörden haben sechs Ausländer aus den USA und Europa wegen angeblicher Pläne zur „Destabilisierung“ des Landes festgenommen und der US-Regierung eine Beteiligung an Umsturzplänen vorgeworfen. Wie die Regierung in Caracas mitteilte, wurden drei US-Bürger, zwei Spanier und ein Tscheche festgenommen.
Die Verdächtigen hätten „Gewaltakte“ gegen Präsident Nicolás Maduro und dessen Regierung geplant, sagte Innenminister Diosdado Cabello bei einer Pressekonferenz
“They went with this tropicalized character,” Cabello said in relation to the US intentions to use a person with the same Latin American phenotype, seeking not to repeat the gringo mercenaries of Caucasian morphology.
“It is important to know that this person worked in special Navy SEAL units focused on Latin America, because they are made up of people who speak Spanish perfectly, like this person,” he explained.
The Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace added that two citizens of Spanish origin, a Czech citizen and an American expert in computer hacking are also in custody.
„We know that the United States Government is linked to this operation because during the investigation we have found out how, in Orlando, Florida, in one of these parcel services, in the warehouses, the FBI was there and we have that video (…) they allowed that operation to continue,“ he said.
(…)
“A few days ago we captured some people who were talking about throwing grenades and explosives at the Argentine Embassy, where some terrorists and criminals from the opposition are taking refuge. This perfectly reversed the fact that if the Argentine Embassy, where some gentlemen and ladies from the opposition are, were attacked, it was immediately obvious that the person who would be blamed would be the Government of Venezuela,” he warned.
“The CIA is at the forefront of this operation,” Cabello said in the news conference, claiming that Spain’s National Intelligence Center was also involved. “That does not surprise us at all,” he said.
He alleged that the operation had “very clear objectives of assassinating President Nicolás Maduro” and other high-ranking Venezuelan politicians including himself and the vice president.
The State Department denied the claims. A spokesperson confirmed on Saturday a member of the US military had been arrested in Venezuela, and that the department was “aware of unconfirmed reports of two additional US citizens detained” in the country.
(09.05.2024)
There were again pro-Palestinian protests at universities in Amsterdam and Utrecht overnight.
(07.05.2024)
Some 125 activists were arrested as police broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam in the early hours of Tuesday, as protests that have roiled campuses in the United States spread into Europe.
According to a statement from University Spokesperson Edward Blaguszewski, 109 people have been booked as a result of the encampment, and around 25 people are waiting to be processed.
Blaguszewski’s statement read: “As chairman of the UMass Board of Trustees, I want to offer the Board’s full and unwavering support for Chancellor Javier Reyes,” said Chairman Stephen Karam. “We have absolute confidence in his leadership, his integrity, and his commitment to our students.”
Police arrested about 130 people at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Tuesday night after the college says pro-Palestinian protesters refused to take down an encampment on campus and leave the area.
UMass has not said what the protesters are charged with, but 109 have been booked by campus police as of Wednesday morning and there are charges pending for about 25 more.
– The initial arrests sparked a movement on college campuses across the country, including at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
– More than 2,100 protesters have been arrested at colleges and universities in recent weeks, including students, faculty, and outside agitators.
Wie ein Polizeisprecher dem rbb sagte, hatten sich etwa 300 Personen zunächst zu einer unangemeldeten Kundgebung im Ehrenhof der HU zusammengefunden. Weil es wiederholt volksverhetzende Parolen gegeben habe, seien demnach knapp 40 Freiheitsbeschränkungen eingeleitet worden, um Personalien aufzunehmen. Dabei habe es auch Widerstand und tätliche Angriffe auf Polizeibeamte gegeben.
Students in dorms craned their necks and shakily stretched their iPhones out windows to observe the impending attack.
We clung tighter to one another as they approached us, and seized us like rag dolls and slammed us into the hallowed ground of brick and concrete. But unlike rag dolls, we bleed, we crack, we bruise, we feel.
Arrests piled up at several colleges, 14 Princeton University students launched a hunger strike, and police raided an NYU encampment Friday in the latest battles on college campuses that have pitted university officials against their own students over the war in Gaza.
Prior to merging it with the newly declared union, Organi led the Union of Sinai Tribes (UST), a pro-government paramilitary group set up in 2015 to support the Egyptian army in its battles against a local offshoot of the Islamic State (IS). The UST’s mission in Sinai has been unclear since the IS-affiliate group known as the Sinai Province was officially defeated in 2022.
The bloody, 10-year campaign in the Sinai has almost completely razed Rafah and uprooted thousands of members of the indigenous Bedouin population, leaving most towns and villages pulverised.
(04.04.2024)
Wednesday’s demonstration was held in front of the Journalists‘ Syndicate in Cairo, where dozens of journalists and activists gathered to protest against the ongoing Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
Activists shared videos of one of the protesters chanting against business tycoon and government ally Ibrahim al-Organi, whose companies have been charging Palestinians thousands of dollars to exit Gaza.
Police said in a statement early Thursday that 90 people were arrested at Dartmouth College „for multiple offenses including criminal trespass and resisting arrest.“ Those arrested included both Dartmouth students and non-Dartmouth students, per the statement.
What else is happening: The NYPD said officers made several arrests at Fordham University on Wednesday evening, one day after they arrested 282 pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University and the City College of New York.
The University of Wisconsin at Madison said………..
We get an update from the University of California, Los Angeles, where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment. The Real News Network reporter Mel Buer was on the scene during the attack. She describes seeing counterprotesters provoke students, yelling slurs and bludgeoning them with parts of the encampment’s barricade, and says the attack lasted several hours without police or security intervention. ”UCLA is complicit in violence inflicted upon protesters,” wrote the editorial board of UCLA’s campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, the next day. Four of the paper’s student journalists were targeted and assaulted by counterprotesters while covering the protests.
Chancellor Gene Block released a statement Thursday afternoon claiming that the Palestine solidarity encampment had been shut down because it led to unsafe university conditions and interfered with UCLA’s educational mission.
Block confirmed that more than 200 people were arrested, with more than 300 leaving voluntarily Thursday morning following a police sweep of the encampment. The dispersal followed an outbreak of violence on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, during which counter-protesters attacked the encampment using fireworks, tear gas and by throwing projectiles.
Throughout the night and into the morning, students outside the encampment linked arms against the police and a small group of counter protesters, remaining peaceful. Around 1:20 a.m. police dressed in riot gear broke through the west barricade unexpectedly after a loud boom sounded from a flash-bang grenade. The protestors quickly formed a human chain, slowly pushing forward, and shouting “peaceful protest,” as well as phrases such as “shame on you.”
The students pushed the officers back, regaining control of the perimeter in approximately 30 minutes and rebuilding their barricades.
Police then began shooting fireworks into the air above protestors’ heads…
CNN‘s Shimon Prokupecz breaks down the NYPD‘s response at Columbia University, where police arrested dozens after the university requested their assistance to respond to on-campus protests.
Over 100 protesters were arrested Tuesday at Columbia University and City College of New York, according to a law enforcement official.
Most of the arrests were made at Columbia, including about two dozen protesters who police say tried to prevent officers from entering the campus, the official said.
רבבות הפגינו אמש (מוצ“ש) נגד הממשלה ולמען השבת החטופים בתל אביב, ירושלים, קיסריה, חיפה, באר שבע ועשרות מוקדים נוספים. בשעות הבוקר נערכה בצרת הפגנת אלפים נגד המלחמה והכיבוש ולציון ה-1 במאי. ההפגנה המרכזית בקריאה לבחירות נערכה בצומת קפלן בתל אביב ובמקביל התקיימה ברחבת מוזיאון תל אביב העצרת השבועית של מטה משפחות החטופים. בנוסף התקיימה הפגנה של בני משפחות חטופים נגד ממשלת הימין מול שער בגין בקריה.
בסיום ההפגנה בתל אביב עשרות מוחים יצאו לצעדה לכיוון גשר יהודית, והמשטרה חסמה מיוזמתה את איילון דרום. מטה משפחות החטופים מסר כי אילה מצגר, כלתו של החטוף יורם מצגר, עוכבה לחקירה לאחר שהדליקה לפיד בהפגנה. מאוחר יותר מפגינים, בהם בני משפחה של חטופים, חסמו את איילון צפון סמוך למחלף קק“ל והדליקו כתובת אש עם המילה „חלאס“ במקום. מהמשטרה נמסר כי שבעה מפגינים נעצרו.
(27.04.2024)
Heavily armed police force raided Friday evening, April 26, the Hadash branch in Nazareth and arrested two activists who were setting up displays and flags for the May Day rally.
Activists from Hadash, the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and the Young Communist League were involved in the planning and preparations for the central May Day demonstration being organized by Hadash and the CPI who will be held, as every year, in Nazareth, today at 10:30, with a mass march along Tawfiq Zyad street in the center of the city.
Nearly 200 protesters were arrested Saturday at Northeastern University, Arizona State University and Indiana University, according to officials, as colleges across the country struggle to quell growing pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments on campus.
As a new anti-war movement has sprung on campuses across the country, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Boston and IfNotNow Boston support the student encampment movement in solidarity with Palestine across this city and the country. We denounce Northeastern University’s discipline of student activists and Boston Police Department’s arrest of peaceful protesters. We denounce false claims from the Northeastern administration that protests were “infiltrated by professional organizers” who used “virulent antisemitic slurs.”
Video posted to X by GBH News reporter Tori Bedford clearly shows the incident in question, in which a pro-Israel counter-protester, holding an Israeli flag, attempts to be disruptive by yelling “kill the Jews.” He goes on to accuse student protesters of being funded by the Qatari government and imply that they are not US citizens. By using this event to slander their own students, the Northeastern University administration is acting in incredible bad faith. They owe pro-Palestine student organizers an apology.
Mass State Police said 102 people were arrested and face trespassing and disorderly conduct charges and are being transported to the Suffolk County House of Correction to be booked and processed.
Northeastern University released a statement on Saturday morning through social media saying approximately 100 people had been detained and the ones without a university ID were arrested.
Noelle McAfee (age 63, born November 25, 1960) is a prominent political theorist and feminist. Currently, she holds the position of chair in the philosophy department at Emory University, a role she’s held since 2010.
Alongside being a Professor of Philosophy, she’s also a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory.
(25.04.2024)
(25.04.2024)
„To sustain this level of blind support for Israel, the U.S. must erode its own democracy,“ said one foreign policy expert. „And that is what we see happening on U.S. campuses now.“
(25.04.2024)
A CNN crew witnessed at least two professors detained by Atlanta police, including Emory University economics professor Caroline Fohlin and Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department.
Going over some of the news, good and bad, coming out of the campus protests. Including what happened to Emory University‘s professor of economics Caroline Fohlin, but also a beautiful speech given by an 88-year-old activist.
Palestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to California to protest Israel‘s attacks on Gaza and to call for divestment from Israeli apartheid. This week, police have raided encampments and arrested students at Yale and New York University. Palestinian American scholar and New York University professor Helga Tawil-Souri describes forming a faculty buffer to protect students, negotiating with police, and the ensuing crackdown that led to over 100 arrests Monday night. Uptown in New York City, the encampment at Columbia University is entering its seventh day despite mass arrests of protesters last week.