“Yet again we see direct and apparently deliberate fire on a UNIFIL position,” the Mission said in a statement.
“We remind the IDF and all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times,” it stressed.
(19:06 BST)
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (Unifil) said an Israeli Merkava tank fired at their watchtower near southern Lebanon‘s Kfar Kela on Wednesday morning.
Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged, Unifil said.
(Updated October 13, 2024 at 7:27 p.m. EDT)
The shipment, which will be delivered at an unknown date, is the latest example of Biden using “carrots” rather than sticks to induce Israel into less aggressive behavior, Mann said.
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
“Although we welcome the Biden administration’s long overdue threat to withhold weapons from the Israeli government, waiting 30 days to do so is unacceptable. The Israeli government is starving and killing the Palestinian people today, right this very moment, in violation of U.S. law. The Palestinian people cannot wait another month for the Biden administration to uphold the law and end its complicity in the Israeli government’s campaign of slaughter and starvation.”
The Israeli forces’ assault on Gaza has escalated to a horrifying level of atrocity. Northern Gaza is being wiped off the map. Under the guise of “evacuation,” Israeli forces have ordered the forced displacement of an estimated 400,000 Palestinians trapped in northern Gaza, including Gaza City. This is not an evacuation – this is forced displacement under gunfire. Since 1 October, no food has been allowed into the area, and civilians are being starved and bombed in their homes and their tents.
(…)
Signatories:
– ActionAid
– Action For Humanity
– Afri (Action from Ireland)
– Amos Trust
– Bloody Sunday Trust
– Centre for Global Education
– CESVI
– Children Not Numbers
– Christian Aid
– Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP)
– Comhlamh Justice for Palestine
– Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu)
– Embrace the Middle East
– Feminist Humanitarian Network (FHN)
– Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS)
– Global Justice Now
– HelpAge International
– Interpal
– Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
– Islamic Relief
– KinderUSA
– Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)
– Médecins du Monde Spain
– Middle East Children‘s Alliance
– Muslim Aid
– Novact Institute for Nonviolence
– Oxfam
– Plan International Jordan
– Sabeel-Kairos UK
– Sadaka-The Ireland Palestine Alliance
– TDH Italy
– Trócaire
– Trinity College Dublin Students‘ Union/ Aontas Mac Léinn Choláiste na Tríonóide (TCDSU/AMLCT)
– Vento di Terra
– War Child
– War on Want
– WeWorld
– Welfare Association
The Sunday letter, jointly written by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, is addressed to Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer.
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.
Harris pursues a policy of death in Gaza, and she expects we will vote for her.
We need to work hard to make sure that she will not be elected to the presidency. Not only will this punish Harris, but it will also send a signal to all politicians that you won’t be rewarded with our votes when you engage in genocide. This movement will transform American politics and bring civil rights into US foreign policy.
With a month to go before what is widely expected to be an extraordinarily close election, an extra element of unpredictability looms: In every battleground state, there is at least one third-party or independent presidential candidate on the ballot.
None of these candidates will come anywhere close to winning the presidency. Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, is polling at about 1 percent nationally, according to New York Times polling released last week. Same with Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Party candidate.
In other campaign news, the Democratic National Committee has released an ad attacking Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein, claiming a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump. Democrats are planning to run the ad in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. In August, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, published a survey that showed Stein is leading Harris among Muslim voters in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin. Stein has criticized Harris for refusing to cut off arms sales to Israel.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I am gonna actually announce — we have press in the room — that I have decided, not only will I have a Republican in my cabinet — I was talking to my team about it — I want to create some structure around the following, which is: I love good ideas, wherever they come from. I love good ideas! Right?
So part of what I intend to do and put some structure around is creating a bipartisan council of advisors, who can then give feedback on policy as we go forward.
Because here‘s the thing I also understand, and feel strongly about. In order for us as America to maintain our status as the strongest democracy in the world, we need a healthy two-party system. We have to have a healthy two-party. We have to! It‘s in the best interest of all of us.
The heavy historical burden has compelled Germany to support Israel unconditionally in all international forums. While such support might be understandable in the context of historical relations, using it as a pretext to overlook Israel’s ongoing human rights violations in Gaza is both ethically and politically unjustifiable.
(August 12, 2024)
The bureau said in a statement that Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians. “This constitutes around 1.8 percent of the total population in the territory,” PCBS said.
According to the data, approximately 24 percent of those killed by Israel in Gaza are youths.
(September 30, 2024)
„The Democrats cannot win without the support of the Muslim American community. And that community has left the station and is not coming back unless the Democrats decide that it‘s more important to them to win the election than it is to conduct the genocide,“ Stein said in an interview with Newsweek.
„So they have to do a 180 on the genocide and they don‘t appear willing to do that. They could win those votes back, but it doesn‘t look like that‘s on the cards. So it looks like they are sacrificing several swing states.“ Israel denies it is conducting genocide.
The US will deploy the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system in Israel, according to reports by Channel 12 news and Army Radio that describe the move as part of preparations for the expected Israeli response to Iran’s recent missile attack.
Channel 12 news says the advanced missile defense system will be operated by American troops on Israeli soil.
The deployment would mark a deepening of the US‘s military footprint inside Israel.
The pentagon has said US special operations forces are stationed in Israel to “actively“ help Israel “identify hostages, including American hostages“.
In 2007, former Nato commander Wesley Clark recounted a meeting at the Pentagon shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan. An officer told him: “We are going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”
Clark added of the neoconservatives: “They wanted us to destabilise the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.”
As I documented in my 2008 book Israel and the Clash of Civilisations, Israel was supposed to carry out a central chunk of Washington’s post-Iraq plan, starting with its war on Lebanon in 2006. Israel’s attack there was supposed to drag in Syria and Iran, giving the US a pretext to expand the war.
This was what the US secretary of state of the time, Condoleezza Rice, meant when she spoke of the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”.
The plan went awry largely because Israel got bogged down in phase one, in Lebanon. It blitzed cities like Beirut with US-supplied bombs, but its soldiers struggled against Hezbollah in a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
The West subsequently found other ways to deal with Syria and Libya.
The UK is failing to stand up for international law, as Israeli forces are forcibly transferring civilians from northern Gaza to the south and relentlessly bombarding the area, making it uninhabitable and stripping away the essential conditions that sustain life. The Government must demand that Israel end its heinous attacks, and take action to oppose any annexation or shrinking of Gaza. Its current silence is tantamount to complicity.
(…)
Signatories:
– Action For Humanity
– Amos Trust
– Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)
– Welfare Association
– Caabu
– Sabeel-Kairos UK
– Amnesty International UK
– Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS)
– Islamic Relief UK
– Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR)
– Trócaire
– War on Want
– Action Aid UK
– Global Justice Now
– Oxfam GB
(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.
)October 3, 2024)
The revelation from Bou Habib could provide insight into how Israel killed Nasrallah, who has survived multiple Israeli assassination attempts over the decades.
Another report from Reuters published on Wednesday said that Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sent a messenger to warn Nasrallah that Israel was planning to assassinate him. That messenger, senior Iranian commander Abbas Nilforoushan, was also killed in the Israeli strike on Friday 27 September.
(January 5, 2024)
In 1988, the Central Intelligence Agency did discover that Riyadh bought SS-2 medium-range missiles from China but only after the deal was sealed. In 2003, when China exported DF-21 ballistic missiles to the Kingdom, the CIA again found out and was even allowed to verify the missiles were not nuclear-capable, but only after the missiles were delivered.
Several years later, when intelligence finally leaked out that China secretly built missile factories for the Saudis, the Trump administration was mum on whether there was an intelligence failure and allowed speculation that it had blessed the transaction. Then, in 2020, when US intelligence confirmed China was helping the Kingdom mill uranium domestically, it did so, again only after the mining and milling were well underway.
This track record of studied inadvertence, then, brings us to the next worry: MBS wants Washington to green-light the Kingdom enriching uranium…
(March 19, 2023)
In general, the Saudis wish to present themselves as Iran’s equals, and if Iran can enrich uranium, say the Saudis, then so can we. In addition, the Saudis want to keep all their nuclear options open, even if they are not intending to work on the development of nuclear weapons immediately.
(September 14, 2023)
Top Israeli sources have told the Jerusalem Post that there are secret technological ways to ensure that the Saudis do not misuse civilian nuclear items, which the US may give them as part of a three-way normalization deal, for military purposes.
Although there are no guarantees, because the issue is highly technical and there are issues to address regarding the Palestinians and highly complex politics, these technological fixes could be key to locking in a normalization deal between Riyadh and Jerusalem, under Washington’s auspices.
(March 27, 2019)
Many U.S. lawmakers are concerned that sharing nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia could eventually lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. (…)
Last month, Democratic House members alleged in a report that top White House aides ignored warnings they could be breaking the law as they worked with former U.S. officials in a group called IP3 International to advance a multibillion-dollar plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.
(Oct 04, 2023)
Amid reports that Saudi Arabia is seeking United States support for its nuclear energy program—whose capacities critics fear could be utilized to develop nuclear weapons—a group of 20 U.S. senators on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to „seriously consider“ whether such a move is in the national interest as the administration brokers a possible normalization deal between the kingdom and Israel.
(August 30, 2023)
Policymakers in Washington and the Middle East have been busy talking about the possibility of Saudi Arabia normalizing its ties with Israel in return, in part, for a formal defense pact with the United States. Receiving far less attention is a critical question, at least for Riyadh: Would such a move jeopardize Saudi Arabia’s recent diplomatic accord with Iran?
“We are here at a historic time … and now it is an historic moment of opportunity,” Blumenthal stated. “It really is a magnificent potential achievement with enduring effect to match the successes of the battlefield with diplomatic successes.
(October 8, 2024)
„We can get you a treaty through the Senate between the United States and Saudi Arabia, a defense agreement like you have in Japan and Australia, if you do it on President Biden‘s watch,“ Graham, who is seen as close to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, told reporters in Jerusalem.
„The next president will have a very difficult time getting 67 votes,“ he said in reference to the two-thirds majority needed in the U.S. Senate for approving a defense treaty.
“The challenge going forward is to turn tactical wins in battle into a strategy that secures Israel’s people and its future,” Sullivan said. “That takes real discipline. It takes courage. It takes foresight to match the conduct of war to a clear and sustainable set of objectives and to turn tactical advantage into enduring strategic gains.”
Two U.S. officials told Axios that during a call on Friday White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Israel‘s minister for strategic affairs Ron Dermer that the U.S. expects „clarity and transparency“ from Israel about its plans to retaliate against Iran because it will have implications for U.S. forces and interests in the region.
– Call was ‚direct and very productive,‘ White House says
– Defence chief Gallant says retaliation to be ‚surprising‘
– Israel‘s UN envoy: ‚It will be painful for the Iranian regime‘
There are many areas to volunteer, and we encourage you to join. But we want to make sure that you are volunteering in an area for which you may be able to devote time. Please indicate what are the areas that you could volunteer.
Harris pursues a policy of death in Gaza, and she expects we will vote for her.
We need to work hard to make sure that she will not be elected to the presidency. Not only will this punish Harris, but it will also send a signal to all politicians that you won’t be rewarded with our votes when you engage in genocide. This movement will transform American politics and bring civil rights into US foreign policy.
In an interview with the CBS television network aired on Monday night, the Democratic presidential candidate said Iran is the “obvious” answer when asked about the country she considers to be the US’s “greatest adversary”.
“Iran has American blood on their hands – this attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles,” she said. “What we need to do [is] to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power. That is one of my highest priorities.”
Figure 1: U.S. Military Aid to Israel from October 7, 2023 to September 2024 (in millions of dollars)
Foreign Military Financing $6,8009
Missile Defense $4,500
Missile Defense (Iron Beam) $1,200
Enhancing Artillery Production $1,000
Replenishing Arms Delivered to Israel from U.S. Stocks $4,400
TOTAL $17.9 billion
Our real enemies are in Washington and London and Tel Aviv. In Berlin and Paris and Canberra. In secretive government agencies in the state of Virginia, and in imperial propaganda institutions in New York and Hollywood.
I hate when people say “Bah the middle east has always been at war, it’s just how they are.” No you asshole, it’s been at war because of western interventionism and Israel.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire just days before he was assassinated by Israel.
The temporary ceasefire was called for by US President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and other allies during last week’s UN General Assembly.
Christiane Amanpour: “Are you saying Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire just moments before he was assassinated?”
Abdallah Bou Habib: “He agreed. He agreed, yes, yes. We agreed completely. Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire, but consulting with the Hezbollah. The speaker, Mr. Berri, consulted with Hezbollah. And we informed the Americans and the French that that’s what happened.”
Christiane Amanpour: “So” —
Abdallah Bou Habib: “And they told us that Mr. Netanyahu also agreed on the statement that was issued by both presidents.”
The Israeli response was yet another example of what Austin privately characterized as Netanyahu’s government “playing with house money”: taking big shots at its adversaries, knowing that the United States, as Israel’s chief ally, would throw its military and diplomatic weight behind it.
Some speculated that Biden’s new lame-duck status had further emboldened Netanyahu, who thought a possible Trump return to the White House would mean more U.S. support for Israel and less complaining. Just days before the attacks on Shukr and Haniyeh, after giving a table-thumping speech to Congress, Netanyahu had visited the former president and newly crowned Republican presidential nominee at his Florida residence.
U.S. crude oil prices rose more than 4% on Thursday, on pace for a third consecutive session of gains on fears that Israel could strike Iran‘s oil industry in retaliation for Tehran‘s ballistic missile attack this week.
The president was asked about a potential strike on the oil infrastructure of Iran, which accounts for about 2 percent of the world’s supply.
(04.03.2015)
The prime minister has been warning for over 20 years that Tehran is close to achieving its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Die öffentlich gewordene Fassung der geplanten Resolution „Nie wieder ist jetzt: Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland schützen, bewahren und stärken“ erfüllt uns jedoch mit großer Sorge. Nach ersten juristischen Einschätzungen kollidiert sie mit dem Grundgesetz, bringt eine mannigfaltige Rechtsunsicherheit, zweifelhafte Praktikabilität und die Gefahr der Diskriminierung mit sich. Durch die autoritative Verwendung der sehr weitreichenden und gleichzeitig unscharfen IHRA-Arbeitsdefinition als Regulierungsinstrument, sowie durch die unklare Frage faktischer Bindung einer Bundestags-Resolution, droht sie enorme Verunsicherung mit sich zu bringen und zum Verstummen jener Stimmen zu führen, die durch entsprechende Ansätze geschützt werden sollen. Ein immenser Schaden für unsere Demokratie wäre die Folge. Doch der Bekämpfung von Antisemitismus gebührt eine Resolution, die mit der demokratisch freiheitlichen Grundordnung in Einklang steht.
Civil society groups, artists and academics, myself included, have criticised the draft resolution in an open letter. We are particularly worried about the threat it presents to freedom of speech, alongside academic and artistic freedoms, while failing to achieve the goal it rightly sets itself.
The draft resolution recommends adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s definition of antisemitism as the standard for evaluating state funding requests and determining whether a project is antisemitic.
(September 21, 2024)
He could have ended it with a phone call. The killing continued because he and his handlers wanted it to.
Before Israel and Hezbollah’s last war, in 2006, parents came to the border to bid their sons goodbye. In October, rows of tanks formed in southern Israel before invading the Gaza Strip.
Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror. His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.
The strike that killed Nasrallah took place in the broader context of the conflict that began with Hamas’s massacre on October 7, 2023. Nasrallah, the next day, made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a “northern front” against Israel.
The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups. Just yesterday, I directed my Secretary of Defense to further enhance the defense posture of U.S. military forces in the Middle East region to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war.
President Biden called the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “a measure of justice” for his victims – and said that the US “fully supports” Israel’s move to defend itself against the Iran-backed terror group.
“Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror,” Biden, 81, said in a statement released by the White House Saturday afternoon.
“Appalled by the scale of the ongoing massacre in Lebanon,” Jean-Luc Melenchon, a left-wing French politician and a former Member of the European Parliament, said in a post on X.
“Netanyahu is violating the sovereignty of states throughout the region with the complicity of Europe and the USA. The genocide in Gaza is spreading without limits.”
Israeli Army Radio reported that military aircraft deployed approximately 85 bunker-busting bombs, each carrying one ton of explosives, in an attempt to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The bombs were dropped in civilian areas, resulting in numerous casualties.
(Mar 27, 2007)
The U.S. just detonated an absolutely enormous bomb, in an underground test: a king-sized bunker-buster, six times larger than what‘s currently in the American arsenal.
No, it‘s not the famed Divine Strake, but something else entirely…
You may remember the GBU-43 MOAB – Massive Ordnance Air Burst (or ‘Mother Of All Bombs’) the 21,000-pound megabomb that was wheeled out before Operation Iraqi Freedom. Now MOAB is to get an even bigger sibling, the MOP, or Massive Ordnance Penetrator.
It‘s a 30,000-pound weapon, designed to strike targets too deep or too hard for the biggest bunker-buster America‘s got, the 5,000-pound BLU-113. It can go through some 22 feet of concrete or over 100 feet of earth. MOP will go a lot deeper – 200 feet of 5,000 psi concrete.
Iran has condemned the United States of America for being ‚complicit‘ in the Israeli strikes conducted on Gaza and Lebanon. It has also accused Israel of using over 5,000-pound bunker buster bombs „gifted“ by the US in its fresh strikes on residential areas in Beirut. The States responded saying that it had no prior information of the strikes.
Meanwhile, IDF said that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed after being the target of these strikes which knocked out six buildings.
(September 27, 2024)
Elijah Magnier, a military analyst, says the ordnance used by Israel in its latest attack on Beirut is a “very new type of bomb” – the GBU-72.
The weapon is “an advanced 5,000-pound [2,200kg] bunker buster that was created in 2021”, Magnier told Al Jazeera.
The bomb has not been used in the past for the “same objective”, he said, suggesting Israel wanted to “confirm the kill and wanted to make sure nobody is going to be alive”.
It was dropped with a fraction of delay, which allowed the bomb to reach the bunker under the ground and bring down entire structures, Maginer explained.
Israel’s initial response was clearly not the reaction the White House had anticipated, and it raised immediate question of why, if Israel was on board with the proposal, its leader appeared so eager to dismiss it.
“We are shocked,” said one US official, underscoring deep frustration after they had hoped Israel would accept the proposal.
“Not a complete surprise, but also not helpful,” a second US official said.
Israel has secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support its ongoing military efforts and to maintain a qualitative military edge in the region, the Defense Ministry announces in a statement.
The package includes $3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement, which has already been received and earmarked for critical military purchases, and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems including the Iron Dome anti-missile system, David’s Sling, and an advanced laser system.
The Senate will vote on these resolutions when it reconvenes in November. Let me explain why these arms sales must not proceed.
Israel clearly had the right to respond to Hamas’ horrific terrorist attack on October 7th, which killed 1,200 innocent Israelis and took hundreds of hostages. But Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extremist government has not simply waged war against Hamas. It has waged all-out war against the Palestinian people, killing more than 41,000 Palestinians and injuring more than 95,000 – 60 percent of whom are women, children, or elderly people. Netanyahu has bombed hospitals and schools, starved children, destroyed infrastructure and housing stock, and made life unlivable in Gaza. The United States must end its complicity in this atrocity.
Sending more weapons is not only immoral, it is also illegal. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act lay out clear requirements for the use of American weaponry – Israel has egregiously violated those rules.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and a pair of his Senate colleagues on Wednesday formally introduced resolutions aimed at blocking a series of proposed arms sales to the Israeli government as it bombards Gaza and Lebanon, deepening humanitarian crises there and pushing the region to the brink of all-out war.
The six Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, five of which were backed by Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), would together prevent the sale of $20 billion of U.S. weaponry to Israel. The Biden administration approved the massive sale of Joint Direct Attack Munitions, tank ammunition, F-15 fighter jets, and other military equipment last month.