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SvennoJ on 21 April 2024

Rockets fired from Iraq towards US base in Syria: Report

Two Iraqi security sources told the Reuters news agency that at least five rockets were fired from Zummar, in northern Iraq, towards a US military base in northeastern Syria on Sunday.

The attack, if confirmed, would be the first against US forces in the area since early February, after Iranian-backed forces stopped attacks they had been conducting.

The news of the attack comes after fears that violence between Iran and Israel could escalate into all-out war, following the Israeli killing of a top Iranian general in Tehran’s consulate in Syria, a direct Iranian attack on Israel, and reports of an Israeli attack on central Iran.

More details on reports that rockets were fired from Iraq at US military base

We are getting some more information regarding the reports that rockets were launched from Iraq’s town of Zummar towards a US military base in northeastern Syria.

Two Iraqi security sources and a senior army officer have told Reuters that a rocket launcher fixed on the back of a small truck had been parked in Zummar, a border town near Syria. The military official said the truck caught fire after an explosion as warplanes were in the sky. “We can’t confirm that the truck was bombed by US warplanes unless we investigate it,” said a military official on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the incident.

The reported attack comes one day after a huge blast at a military base in Iraq that killed a member of an Iraqi security force.

Iraqi security forces searching for US base attackers

The Iraqi Security Media Cell said that its forces were conducting searches across a wide area in an effort to find the “outlaws” responsible for the rocket attack that targeted US forces at a base in northwestern Syria.

A statement from the security forces carried by the Iraqi News Agency said that the launchpad for the rockets had been found.

 

Iraq has already asked the US to leave the country. I guess some groups rather see them leaving sooner than later.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iraq-seeks-quick-exit-us-forces-no-deadline-set-pm-says-2024-01-10/
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-iraq-begin-talks-lead-withdrawal-american-troops/story?id=10668



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SvennoJ on 21 April 2024

Protestors gather in Spain, Turkey, Pakistan to show solidarity with Palestinians


A woman reacts as people call for a ceasefire in Gaza during a protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Madrid, Spain, April 21, 2024


Pro-Palestinian protesters hold Palestine flags during a march in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Istanbul, Turkey, 21 April 2024


Supporters of the Pakistan Markazi Muslim League attend a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Karachi, Pakistan, 21 April 2024



Protesters in Paris show solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza

About 2,000 people gathered in Paris to protest against racism, Islamophobia and police violence while also showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Carrying Palestinian flags and wearing keffiyehs, they chanted slogans such as, “Stop the genocide in Gaza” and “Anti-colonialist anti-Zionist resistance”. Leading figures from France’s populist Yellow Vest movement, as well as members of the hard-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, took part in the rally.


Protesters carry a Palestinian flag during the ‘March against racism islamophobia and for the protection of all the children’ in the streets of Paris, France, 21 April 2024




SvennoJ on 21 April 2024

Sister of baby saved after mother’s killing wanted to name her Rouh

More on the baby girl who was delivered from the womb of Sabreen Al-Sakani, the Palestinian woman who was killed in an Israeli attack on Gaza along with her husband and young daughter.

Sakani’s daughter Malak had wanted to name her new sister Rouh, meaning “spirit” in Arabic, her uncle Rami Al-Sheikh told the Reuters news agency.

“What’s their fault? The whole family wiped out from the civil registry. And the only survivor is this small baby girl. Her sister Malak wanted to name her Rouh. And now Malak is gone. Only Rouh is left,” he said.

“The little girl Malak was happy that her sister was coming to the world,” he added.



Israelis block road in front of Gaza aid trucks

The demonstrators, from the Order 9 movement, gathered at night at southern Israel’s Dimona Junction, where they blocked the road after they received news that aid trucks were headed from Jordan to Gaza.

Israeli activists have repeatedly gathered in the past few months to try to stop aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza, where civilians are struggling to survive amid severe food shortages.


‘Constant fear’ in West Bank amid Israeli settler violence

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said Israeli settler violence is contributing to a “state of constant fear” in the occupied West Bank.

“The situation in the West Bank is worsening by the day including in Palestine refugee camps”, many of which are operated by UNRWA, he said in a post on X. “It is time to end the occupation and address the longest lasting unresolved conflict through political means and a genuine commitment to peace.”

Lazzarini’s comments came after the Palestinian Health Ministry said 14 people were killed in an Israeli raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank’s Tulkarem on the weekend.

‘Pure revenge’: Residents of Nur Shams condemn Israeli raid, destruction

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are used to Israeli forces destroying infrastructure but they say the scale of damage during the recent raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp – with homes demolished, roads dug up and power lines cut – is something they’ve never seen before.

“Even during the 1960s, the roads never looked like this,” said Mahmoud Khalifeh, an elderly resident of the camp. “They [Israeli forces] want to take us decades back.”

Munir Abdel Raheem, another resident, called the destruction “pure revenge”. “It is our enemy and has been damaging our lives since 1948. I’m now 54 years old and have only been seeing the ugliness and torture of the Israeli occupation since I was a child.”

In addition to destroying infrastructure, Israeli forces also killed 14 Palestinians during the three-day raid on Nur Shams.

 

 



SvennoJ on 21 April 2024

Israel’s monthly military spending doubled by end of 2023: Report

Israel’s monthly military spending more than doubled to $4.7bn by the end of 2023, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The increase from an average of $1.8bn per month before October 2023 was “mainly driven by Israel’s large-scale offensive in Gaza in response to the attack on southern Israel by Hamas in October 2023”, SIPRI said.

Israel’s increased military spending was part of a wider global trend, with SIPRI finding global military spending increased by 6.8 percent in 2023 to a total of $2443bn.

Israel’s closest ally, the United States, remained the single largest military spender in 2023, with $917bn in expenditure, a 37 percent share of all countries’ spending.

2.4 trillion wasted yearly on killing people and stopping people from killing people. Genocide is expensive.



Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah resumes attacks on US forces

More on the rocket attack on a US military base in Syria.

Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah has issued a statement saying Iraqi armed groups have decided to resume attacks on US forces in the country after seeing little progress on talks to achieve the exit of US troops during a visit by the Iraqi prime minister to Washington, DC.

“What happened a short while ago is the beginning,” the group said in an apparent reference to the attack late on Sunday.

Kataib Hezbollah is part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group that began attacking US forces stationed in Iraq and Syria in October, saying they aimed to respond to Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Gaza and to resist US forces deployed in Iraq and the region.

The group suspended those attacks in February amid fears of an escalation after three US soldiers were killed in an attack on a base in Jordan.



Blinken readout of call with Gantz doesn’t mention sanctions

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has released another readout, this time on his call with the Israeli minister and war cabinet member, Benny Gantz.

But according to the Times of Israel, Blinken’s summaries of his calls with Gantz and Gallant “regurgitate old talking points” while failing to mention the “actual reason for the calls”, which is the reports the US is planning to impose sanctions on Israel’s Netzah Yehuda infantry battalion.

The US State Department is yet to officially comment but is reportedly considering the sanctions after a recent investigation from news site ProPublica found Blinken had been sitting on recommendations that the US stop providing aid to multiple Israeli military and police units over alleged human rights abuses.

Palestinians sceptical of US plan to sanction Israeli military



SvennoJ on 22 April 2024

New week, more deaths, today is 198 days since Oct 7.

Deaths, injuries reported as Israeli forces bomb Gaza

The Wafa news agency is reporting multiple casualties after Israeli forces launched pre-dawn attacks on areas in central and southern Gaza.

These include artillery attacks on the Al Maghazi camp and air attacks on the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza. Air raids also targeted southern Khan Younis.


Israeli shell hits al-Awda Hospital as gunboats target Gaza coast

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are now reporting that an Israeli shell has hit the upper floor of al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp. AJA correspondents on the ground also say Israeli gunboats have been bombing the coastline of central and southern Gaza.


Bakeries resume production in north Gaza after WFP deliveries

The World Food Programme says it delivered fuel and wheat flour to bakeries in northern Gaza “so they can begin production again after 170 days of being inoperable”.

“Four bakeries are now up and running and WFP is urgently working to deliver more supplies,” the UN organisation added.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza are at risk of famine as ongoing fighting and Israel’s limited entry of aid has decimated its food supply.


Relative of dead children asks: ‘What did they do?’

Reaction continues after an Israeli air strike on a family home killed 24 people, including 16 children and six women, in southern Rafah. “These children were sleeping. What did they do? What was their fault?” asked one relative Umm Kareem.

Mohammed al-Beheiri said his daughter, Rasha, and her six children, the youngest 18 months old, were among the dead. A woman and three children were still under the rubble, he said. Resident Umm Hassan Kloub, 35, said her children screamed when they “woke up to a nightmare of an explosion”.

“Every second we live in terror, even the sound of Israeli aircraft doesn’t stop,” she said.

Israel’s attack on Gaza has killed more than 14,500 children. The war has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians – at least two-thirds of them children and women – since last October.



Mass grave in Khan Younis among ‘the most unthinkable war crimes’

Gaza’s civil defence crews continue exhuming human remains from a mass grave at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as grieving relatives collect bodies wrapped in white shrouds. At least 210 bodies have been recovered so far, rescue workers say.

Resident Umm Mohammed al-Harazeen came to the hospital hoping for news of her husband. He has been missing since Israeli forces entered Khan Younis months ago. “We have been searching for him, but to no avail.”

The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights denounced the killings on social media. “These mass graves are obvious evidence of genocide and the most unthinkable war crimes,” it said.

The group noted news of the mass killings came as the US House of Representatives approved a bill for $14bn in military aid “while Israel threatens a full scale ground invasion to massacre Palestinians in Rafah”.


Israel intensifies attacks on Gaza’s refugee camps

You can hear the sound of Israeli drones across Rafah, including reconnaissance aircraft, flying low across the city. About 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are bracing themselves for the expansion of the ground invasion here.

They don’t know where to go. Rafah has been the last refuge for people here for the past six months.

People are still coming to terms with the aftermath of the past 24 hours. At least 24 people have been killed, mostly women and children, inside residential homes by Israeli strikes.

The Israeli military continues to pound Gaza, right now concentrating attacks in central areas where refugee camps are being repeatedly hit – their health facilities, residential buildings and infrastructure destroyed.

People are literally being herded from one place to another. We can safely say the entirety of the Gaza Strip has been equally targeted.

 



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SvennoJ on 22 April 2024

US congresswoman slams $14bn for ‘death and destruction’ in Gaza

Delia Ramirez said “history books will write about” how US leaders “lacked the courage and moral clarity to stand up to” Netanyahu.

Ramirez, who represents a district in the state of Illinois, pointed out that Netanyahu had bombed the “safe zone” of Rafah just one day after the US House voted to give $14bn to Israel “in unconditional military funding to Netanyahu’s campaign of death and destruction”.

The congresswoman made the comments in a post on X, in response to reports that 22 people were killed in Rafah on Sunday night, including 18 children.




Biden one sided as always

Biden condemns ‘blatant’ anti-Semitism amid campus protests

The US president has issued a statement on the occasion of the Jewish Passover holiday, condemning an “alarming surge of anti-semitism – in our schools, communities, and online”.

He said, “Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country”.

Biden’s comments came after reports emerged over the weekend of harassment and threats against Jewish students on the Columbia University campus in New York. The group of student activists representing the protesters have distanced themselves from “inflammatory individuals” and said they reject “any form of hate or bigotry”.

You're support for genocide is what's causing the rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Students at MIT, Emerson and Tufts universities set up protest camps

Students at three prestigious universities in and near the US city of Boston have set up protest camps, demanding that their institutions cut off ties with Israel, according to campaigners.

The universities are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Emerson and Tufts, the National Students for Justice in Palestine said.

The moves come after students at Columbia University in New York launched a Gaza Solidarity Encampment at their campus. That protest is now in its fifth day. Some 100 students were arrested there on Friday.



Rocket attack on US base failed, did not cause injuries: Report

More on the rocket attack on the US base in Syria. A US official confirmed to the Reuters news agency that more than five rockets were fired from Iraq towards troops at a coalition base in Rmeilan, Syria, but said no US personnel were injured.

The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, referred to it as a “failed rocket attack”. The agency said it was not immediately clear if the rockets had failed to hit the base or been destroyed before they reached. It was also not clear if the base was the target itself.

Following the attack, the official said an aircraft from the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria carried out a strike against the launcher.

Iraq says ‘outlaw elements’ behind US base attack

The AFP news agency has a statement from the Iraqi security forces on the rocket attack targeting a military base in Syria housing a US-led coalition.

The statement accused “outlaw elements of having targeted a base of the international coalition with rockets in the heart of Syrian territory” at about 9:50pm (18:50 GMT), according to AFP.

In response, the Iraqi forces launched a major search operation in northern Nineveh province and found the vehicle used in the attack, the statement said. The security forces burned the vehicle involved in the attack, it added.

Always conflicting statements.



SvennoJ on 22 April 2024

Israel’s military intelligence chief resigns over October 7 attack failures

Aharon Haliva, the head of Israel’s military intelligence, is the first senior official figure to step down over the failures surrounding Hamas’s attack.

The Israeli military said in a statement the military chief of staff accepted Haliva’s resignation and thanked him for his service. The move could set the stage for more of Israel’s top security brass to accept blame for not preventing the attack and step down.

Haliva said in October that he shouldered responsibility for not preventing the attack that broke through Israel’s vaunted defences. At least 1,139 Israelis were killed and hundreds captured and taken back to Gaza.


The aftermath of an attack on the Supernova music festival in the Negev desert in southern Israel

The army said in a statement Major-General Aharon Haliva asked to end his service “following his leadership responsibility” after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

Haliva, as well as other military and security officials, were widely expected to resign in response to the glaring failures that led to the attack. But the timing of the resignations is unclear because Israel is still fighting Hamas in Gaza to the south and battling Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north. Tensions with Iran are also high following tit-for-tat attacks.

While Haliva and others have accepted blame for failing to stop the October attack, others have stopped short, most notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said he would answer tough questions about his role but has not outright acknowledged any responsibility for allowing the attack to unfold.


Israeli military releases intelligence chief’s resignation letter

The resignation letter from Major-General Aharon Haliva has been provided to journalists.

“On Saturday, October 7th 2023, Hamas committed a deadly surprise attack against the state of Israel. The intelligence division under my command did not live up to the task we were entrusted with,” he said.

“I carry that black day with me ever since. Day after day, night after night. I will forever carry with me the terrible pain of the war.”

Haliva is the first high-ranking official to step down for failing to prevent the attack.


Pressure on Israeli intelligence chief ‘was immense’

The resignation of Israel’s military intelligence chief was expected, and now political leaders are likely to feel increased pressure to assume the blame for Hamas’s October attack.

Political analyst Yossi Mekelberg noted members of the military leadership said they would resign once the war on Gaza was over. But as the conflict drags on with no end in sight, Aharon Haliva’s move to quit seemed inevitable.

“Something is rotten in the kingdom of Israeli intelligence,” Mekelberg, associate fellow at the British think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera. “The pressure on Haliva was immense” – not just for the October 7 failures, but also for intelligence on what would have been the Iranian response to a suspected Israeli attack on its consular building in Damascus, which pushed the region to the brink of war.

“They left the country and the region on edge – it seems that no one warned against the possibility of more than 300 missiles, including ballistic, against Israel,” Mekelberg added.

While it is not clear whether the resignation will pave the way for more military officials to do the same, it will put pressure on the political leadership to accept responsibility, he said. Admitting responsibility for October 7 has long been a thorny issue in the Israeli leadership as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet accepted blame.

Israeli military intelligence got it ‘spectacularly wrong’

Major-General Aharon Haliva says in his resignation letter the military’s intelligence division did not live up to the task it was entrusted with. He said we know now there was a major failure of intelligence that allowed Hamas to get away with this large-scale attack on Israeli territory.

Up to a year before, Israeli intelligence got its hands on a Hamas document that accurately laid out the plans for the October 7 attack. We know Israeli military spotters watching from the towers around Gaza in the weeks and months leading up to the infiltration had said they’d seen Hamas battalions preparing for some sort of assault.

All of this was ignored at the very highest levels of the military and the government because there was this belief that Hamas was not interested in launching an assault on Israel. That Hamas was more interested in managing Gaza.

They got that spectacularly wrong. The head of military intelligence has accepted responsibility for that.


Hmm that sounds fishy that they believed Hamas was more interested in managing Gaza. It was more arrogance and not believing Hamas could pull off the scale of the attack. Israel bombed Gaza in May and performed other provocations right before October. They were drawing out a response, yet now claim they didn't think Hamas was interested in responding while having the plans laid out in front of them and seen the preparations?

No it was arrogance. They didn't think Hamas could breach the fence so quickly and effectively and overwhelm the border military outposts.



SvennoJ on 22 April 2024

Ireland calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘collective punishment’

“We believe that the response has been fully disproportionate and has also been, in our view, a breach of humanitarian law in terms of the destruction of Gaza and also in terms of the killing of civilians, innocent men, women and children,” Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin says.

“The population of Gaza has been collectively punished because of the activities of Hamas, that’s not acceptable,” he said ahead of a EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting.

Martin said Ireland and Spain are calling for a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which is based on trade relations with Israel.

Ministers will discuss a proposed Gaza peace plan, the recognition of a Palestinian state, and humanitarian aid issues, he added.

Rafah’s displaced Palestinians brace for ‘the next steps of the war’

On the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover, Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to “deliver additional and painful blows” to Hamas in Gaza.

“In the coming days, we will increase the military and political pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages,” he said in a video statement. Israel estimates 129 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 who the military says are dead.

The army has said at least some of the captives are held in southern Rafah, with Israel threatening a ground invasion of the area where about 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement that “the chief of staff has approved the next steps for the war”, without offering details. “On Passover, it will be 200 days of captivity for the hostages… We will fight until you return home to us,” he said.


Gaza death toll hits 34,151 as Israel army announces war’s ‘next step’

The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza during the Israeli military onslaught has reached 34,151. Another 77,084 have been wounded, the Health Ministry says.

The death toll is likely far higher with thousands believed buried under the rubble of buildings demolished in Israeli strikes. Among the dead are more than 14,500 children and 9,500 women, Gaza’s media office says.



SvennoJ on 22 April 2024

Captive’s father: ‘I’m begging there will be a deal’

Israelis are set to celebrate Passover, a holiday meant to symbolise freedom, against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.

Passover is a major Jewish holiday – celebrated over the course of a week – that commemorates the biblical story of the exodus of ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Jews will gather for a meal, called a “seder”, on Monday night to read the Passover story aloud.

In Israel, some prepared to leave chairs at the seder table empty to symbolise the captives remaining in Gaza. “I can’t imagine celebrating Pesach, the freedom holiday, without my son,” said Dalit Shtivi, whose son Idan is held in Gaza. “I’m begging there will be a deal.”



It seems Netanyahu will have to go first before there will be a ceasefire. With a fresh 27 billion in aid from the USA, Netanyahu has no reason to stop the war.

About 85 percent of Israelis have little or no trust in the government: Poll

The public opinion poll by Israel’s Yediot Ahronoth media outlet and The Institute for Freedom and Responsibility of Reichman University suggests 85 percent of Israelis have little or no trust in their government.

About 64 percent of Israelis believe their country faces an existential threat, and 65 percent have not been sleeping well since the outbreak of the war, it said. At least 73 percent of Israelis have grown anxious in the past six months.

It's hard to sleep with a guilty conscience. In the end, the Israeli public did vote for this ultra right wing openly neo-fascist government.


Resignation of Israel’s army intel chief ‘justified and honourable’

Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader, says the resignation of Major-General Haliva, head of Israel’s military intelligence, was “justified and honourable”.

He called on Netanyahu to follow suit.

“Along with authority comes heavy responsibility,” Lapid said on X.

 

Why did the Israeli military intelligence chief resign now?

Akiva Eldar, an Israeli author and former columnist with Haaretz newspaper, says Major-General Halavi quit likely because Netanyahu isn’t going to end the war on Gaza anytime soon.

Eldar added another reason is that the prime minister “is not interested in bringing the captives back to Israel”.

“Netanyahu is the highest authority and he never took responsibility [for the Hamas attack] so Haliva wanted to send a personal message to tell him, ‘If I can do it, you can do it,’” he said. His move will energise antigovernment protests while putting more pressure on war cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot. “It will create a dynamic that will make it harder for them to convince their constituencies that they have a good reason to stay,” said Eldar.

“If Haliva felt it was a time to say goodbye, many will call on them to step down since they were also part of this lack of strategy to end the conflict with the Palestinians.”



SvennoJ on 22 April 2024

Jordan’s top diplomat calls for global pressure on Israel over planned Rafah invasion

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi says everyone must pressure Israel to prevent a ground assault on Gaza’s southern city of Rafah – the last relatively safe place for 1.5 million Palestinians displaced in the enclave.

“Such an attack would be another massacre,” he said in a statement on X.

Safadi added, “Radicals in Israeli government [are] pushing an explosion [of the already tense situation] in West Bank.”



EU asking ‘Israel in every possible manner’ not to attack Rafah

EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, says the European Union is “asking Israel in every possible manner that they should not attack Rafah, they should protect the civilians”.  He made the comments during the bloc’s Foreign Affairs Council meeting, according to a transcript published on its website.

Borrell noted there is more than one million people in Rafah who “will be massacred if there is an attack from Israel”. “So I can only insist – and all the member states insist – on this not happening. But I am not in the command of the Israeli army.”

You could issue or at least threaten with sanctions....

Rafah attack would eliminate ‘what little remains’ of Gaza’s healthcare

Gaza’s Health Ministry warned an Israeli invasion of southern Rafah would mean the elimination of “what little remains of the healthcare system and depriving the population of any health services”.

It also said in a statement the threatened ground offensive would expose “residents to the risk of death”.

About 1.5 million people are currently crammed into the area, the vast majority ordered there by the Israeli military during its six-month war on the coastal enclave that has killed more than 34,000 people, mostly children and women.

The controversy over Big Tech’s contract with Israel’s military

Google employees and pro-Palestinian protesters have staged demonstrations in California and New York calling for the cancellation of Project Nimbus, the company’s $1.2bn contract with the Israeli government.

Google denied the contract was related to weapons or intelligence services as Israel’s devastating war on Gaza continues.