(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
(May 8, 2024)
British spy planes have recorded up to 1,000 hours of footage over Gaza, including from the day Israel assassinated three UK aid workers.
After being ambushed with demands for him to call for a ceasefire in December last year, he replied: “No, I will not. On the contrary … I want [Israel] to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on.
“These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes.” To the activists, he added: “I hope you guys post that, because that’s my position.”
The broadcaster’s correspondent Step Vaessen said: “Hundreds of supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv came to Amsterdam, held a very vocal rally in the main square before the incident, waving Israeli flags, and also took down a Palestinian flag.”
Police had said they were being particularly vigilant ahead of the match.
City councilman Jazie Veldhuyzen said: “They [Israeli fans] began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started.
(May 28, 2024)
Thanks to their comprehensive access to Palestinian telecoms infrastructure, the sources said, intelligence operatives could capture the calls without installing spyware on the ICC official’s devices.
“If Fatou Bensouda spoke to any person in the West Bank or Gaza, then that phone call would enter [intercept] systems,” one source said. Another said there was no hesitation internally over spying on the prosecutor, adding: “With Bensouda, she’s black and African, so who cares?”
The surveillance system did not capture calls between ICC officials and anyone outside Palestine. However, multiple sources said the system required the active selection of the overseas phone numbers of ICC officials whose calls Israeli intelligence agencies decided to listen to.
According to one Israeli source, a large whiteboard in an Israeli intelligence department contained the names of about 60 people under surveillance – half of them Palestinians and half from other countries, including UN officials and ICC personnel.
In The Hague, Bensouda and her senior staff were alerted by security advisers and via diplomatic channels that Israel was monitoring their work.
(May 28, 2024)
The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.
Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.
That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.
(…)
After the surprise meeting with Kabila and Bensouda in New York, Cohen repeatedly phoned the chief prosecutor and sought meetings with her, three sources recalled. According to two people familiar with the situation, at one stage Bensouda asked Cohen how he had obtained her phone number, to which he replied: “Did you forget what I do for a living?”
(October 15, 2024)
One rogue nation cannot declare war on the UN itself and continue to get away with it
The documents also report no sign of any preparations by Israel to activate its nuclear deterrent. (…)
The US has made no secret of its opposition to the targeting of either Iran’s nuclear research facilities or its oil installations.
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 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 25, 2015)
A political consultant once related how he lunched with Benjamin Netanyahu, who ordered a hamburger with fries. He was not supposed to be eating such foods – doctor’s orders. As they were finishing up, Bibi’s wife, Sarah, came in, saw the evidence and began to see red. Netanyahu, all righteous indignation, looked her straight in the eye and said he had eaten no such hamburger. The storyteller said he was convinced at that moment that Netanyahu himself believed it.
If apocryphal, it is definitely in character. Netanyahu regularly embraces bad ideas or even lies so totally that he convinces himself of their rightness. Others start to believe them too. His outlandish idea, uttered in a speech, was that Hitler would have been happy with just expelling Jews if a Palestinian, the then grand mufti of Jerusalem, had not suggested annihilation instead.