Daily Sabah – November 2, 2023
Gaza bleeds under Israeli attacks as toll crosses 9,000 mark
The Palestinian death toll in Gaza crossed the grim 9,0000 mark on Thursday, with 9,061 people confirmed killed in indiscriminate Israeli attacks since Oct. 7, according to the Gazan Health Ministry.
"The victims include 3,760 children and 2,326 women, while 32,000 other people were injured," ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra told a news conference in Gaza City.
He said 2,060 people were still trapped under the rubble in Gaza.
"The Israeli attacks left 135 medics dead and 25 ambulances destroyed," al-Qudra added.
According to the spokesperson, Israeli forces have targeted more than 100 health care facilities in Gaza since Oct. 7.
"Some 16 hospitals and 32 primary care centers were forced out of service due to the Israeli assault and fuel shortage," he added.
He warned of a "health catastrophe" amid a fuel shortage, which forced the main generator at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza to stop while the main generator at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is about to halt.
4 killed in West Bank
The situation in the occupied West Bank also deteriorated Thursday after four Palestinians, including two teens, were killed by the Israeli army, bringing the death toll in the occupied territory since Oct. 7 to 134.
In a statement, the ministry said a 24-year-old succumbed to his injuries sustained this morning in the city of Al-Bireh.
Witnesses told Anadolu Agency (AA) that Israeli special military forces raided the center of Al-Bireh, leading to clashes with dozens of Palestinians.
They said that the army used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse the Palestinians.
The ministry also announced the death of a 14-year-old and 19-year-old in Nablus and Qalqilya.
Another 14-year-old Palestinian was also killed by Israeli gunfire in the city center of Al-Bireh.
Tensions have been running high across the West Bank amid a massive Israeli bombardment campaign on the blockaded Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army, on the other hand, confirmed Thursday that a military commander was killed in clashes in the Gaza Strip, taking the death toll of its soldiers in the strip where it recently ramped up air and ground attacks to 18.
https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/gaza-bleeds-under-israeli-attacks-as-toll-crosses-9000-mark
Daily Sabah – November 1, 2023
Many casualties as Israel hits Gaza's Jabalia camp twice in 24 hours
Dozens of people were reported killed and injured Wednesday as Israeli airstrikes targeted residential areas at Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp for a second day, according to Palestinian media.
The attacks come less than 24 hours after at least 50 people were confirmed killed while hundreds of others were injured in an earlier bombardment of the camp Tuesday night.
A large explosion ripped through the densely packed Jabalia camp before nightfall, tearing facades off nearby buildings and leaving a deep, debris-littered crater.
Wails filled the air as hundreds of bystanders and volunteers clawed at concrete blocks and twisted metal looking for survivors. Agence France-Presse (AFP) witnessed at least 47 corpses being recovered.
Horrified resident Ragheb Aqal, 41, likened the explosion to "an earthquake" and spoke of seeing "homes buried under the rubble and body parts and martyrs and wounded in huge numbers."
Israel claimed its warplanes had struck a "vast" tunnel complex at the site, killing a local resistance member Ibrahim Biari.
Military spokesman Jonathan Conricus described Biari as "pivotal in the planning and execution" of the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion.
Tuesday's strike is sure to fuel anger at Israel's prosecution of the war and the toll on Palestinian civilians.
Gaza's Health Ministry denounced the incident as "a heinous Israeli massacre" and said an initial toll of 50 dead and 150 wounded was sure to rise.
The ministry claims that in three-plus weeks of Israeli bombing has killed more than 8,700 people in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children.
And Qatar warned that expanded strikes would "undermine mediation and de-escalation efforts."
Doha hosts several senior Hamas officials and is a key channel in trying to secure the release of some 240 hostages believed to have been taken by Palestinian militants on Oct. 7.
Saudi Arabia also criticized the strike, with its Foreign Ministry issuing a statement saying it condemned "in the strongest terms possible the inhumane targeting by the Israeli occupation forces of the Jabalia refugee camp."
But there is little sign of the conflict abating.
Bombing of Jabalia refugees sparks outrage around the world
Thousands mobilized in cities such as Athens, Berlin, Copenhagen, Geneva, Krakow, Los Angeles, London, Melbourne, New York, Sydney, Toronto, Valencia, Vancouver and Montreal.
On Tuesday, millions of people mobilized in cities around the world to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people and reject the bombing by Israeli occupation forces against the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
In Rabat, the capital of Morocco, protesters condemned the murder of 145 civilians caused by the indiscriminate Israeli bombing in Jabalia. The protests occurred in front of the Parliament headquarters, where a crowd of people of different ages carried symbols of Palestine and Morocco.
The demonstration was called by the National Action Group for Palestine, which again rejected the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel.
Moroccans rejected the normalization of relations with the Zionist state through slogans such as "Normalization is a betrayal" and "Morocco and Palestine are a united people."
In front of the French embassy in Beirut, the Lebanese also gathered to protest against the genocide that Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian people.
In the city of Nicosia, the citizens of Cyprus demanded the freedom of the Palestinians and an end to the massacre that Israel has carried out in Gaza since October 7.
Massive expressions of support for the Palestinian cause also took place in cities such as Athens, Berlin, Copenhagen, Geneva, Krakow, Los Angeles, London, Melbourne, New York, Sydney, Toronto, Valencia, Vancouver and Montreal.
For 26 consecutive days, Israel has been attacking the Gaza Strip, where Israeli bombs have killed 8,796 people and injured tens of thousands of Palestinians.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bombing-of-Jabalia-Refugees-Sparks-Outrage-Around-the-World-20231101-0008.html?utm_source=planisys&utm_medium=NewsletterIngles&utm_campaign=NewsletterIngles&utm_content=14
Daily Sabah/Reuters – October 31, 2023
Houthi rebels target Israel with drones and missiles amid tensions
The Houthi rebels in Yemen said they fired missiles and drones at Israel from Sanaa, amid ongoing fears of a regional spillover of the conflict.
Part of an "Axis of Resistance" backed by Iran, the Houthis have rallied behind the Palestinians since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, opening a new front for a movement that has waged war for eight years with a Saudi-led coalition in the Gulf.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised statement the group had launched a "large number" of ballistic missiles and drones toward Israel, and there would be more such attacks to come "to help the Palestinians to victory."
His statement confirmed the widening scope of a conflict that has unnerved states including the world's biggest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, hardening fears of spillover as Israel seeks to destroy Hamas in its Gaza Strip stronghold.
Saree said it was the Houthis' third attack on Israel since the start of the conflict, appearing to confirm they were behind a drone attack on Oct. 28 that resulted in blasts in Egypt and was blamed by Israel on the Houthis, and an Oct. 19 incident in which the U.S. navy intercepted three cruise missiles.
Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said the Houthi attacks were intolerable, but declined to elaborate when asked how Israel might respond.
The Houthis are a formidable part of the "Axis of Resistance," which opposes Israel and the United States and has been waging attacks across the region since Oct. 7.
Iran-backed Iraqi militias have been firing at U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, while Lebanon's Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces at the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The Houthis have demonstrated their missile and drone capabilities during the Y
emen war in attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi-led coalition accuses Iran of arming, training and funding the Houthis. The group denies being an Iranian proxy and says it develops its own weapons.
The United States, Israel's main ally, has deployed aircraft carriers as a deterrent to allegedly prevent the Gaza-Israel conflict from spreading. Iran has also said it does not want the war to spread.
But Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Tuesday indicated Tehran's allies could act further.
"Resistance groups will not remain silent in the face of the Zionist regime's crimes and America's full support for the Zionist regime," he said. "They won't wait for anyone's advice; if the situation gets out of control, no party will be safe from its consequences," he said at a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Iranian state media reported.
Houthi spokesperson Saree blamed Israel for instability in the Middle East, saying the "circle of conflict" in the region was being expanded by its "continued crimes". The Houthis would continue to mount attacks "until the Israeli aggression stops."
Noting that Houthi missiles and drones had been shot down during the latest hostilities, Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center said for now their attacks were "more about messaging than a real military threat."
"The risk to Israel would be if there is an all-out engagement, with multiple rocket launches from all directions which could overwhelm the air defenses," he said.
Yemen has enjoyed more than a year of relative calm amid a U.N.-led peace push. Saudi Arabia has been holding talks with the Houthis in a bid to exit the war, as Riyadh focuses on economic priorities at home.
However, Houthi missile and drone attacks on Israel have increased the risks of conflict for Saudi Arabia.
The most direct flight path for any drone or missile launched from Yemen passes over western Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea before flying over Jordan and into Israel.
The Saudi government's communications office did not respond to a request for comment on the kingdom's concerns over Houthi attacks.
Saudi analyst Aziz Alghashian said Saudi Arabia would be worried about the conflict spilling across its own borders.
"I think the problem is that this war has the potential to put Saudi in a position where it is seen to take sides between the U.S. and Israel, and Iran," he said. "I think Saudi wants to avoid that."
Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to restore diplomatic ties earlier this year, easing years of tensions that have fuelled conflicts across the Middle East.
In 2019, the Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack that temporarily cut more than half of Saudi oil output. The United States said Iran was behind the attack, which Tehran denied.
The Middle East order established by the British, which enslaves Muslims, must be overthrown!
By Yusuf Kaplan
We are all the product of the British, we are all their captives.
The colonial system in the Middle East was established by the British, and they used the Jews, who were settled as slaves in this system, to attack Muslims. The British paved the way, and the Jews launched their attack.
Thus, the British, according to their ultimate goal, achieved Hitler's project of expelling the Jews from Europe by first settling the Jews in Palestine and then inventing a sick Middle East order that would allow the Jews to erase Palestine from the map.
.WHOSE MIDDLE EAST?
In the Islamic world, the imperialist and enslaving Middle East order established by the British has dominated the geography of the Ottoman Empire for about a century, since the overthrow or halt of the Ottoman Empire. Because the Ottoman Empire was destroyed, the Islamic world was divided, and the Islamic world created dozens of puppet "tribal states," and the establishment of the state of Israel became possible under these conditions, and in the end, Israel established its hegemony in the region.
This geography is not the Middle East. According to whom and whose Middle East is it? Not according to me/us, of course! According to the British.
The British invented geographical maps to construct our mental maps, and they are still doing so. But first, they changed our theo-political, that is, creedal priorities by determining their geo-political maps, and they are still doing so in an extremely insidious manner, without making any noise...
FIRST THEO-POLITICAL, THEN GEO-POLITICAL
They determine our orbit with theo-political maps and our direction with geo-political maps.
They have achieved results from all the destruction operations they have carried out against all religions and cultures on the earth; they either fossilized all the religions on which they performed surgery or practically erased them from history. They could not succeed in performing these operations, these surgeries, only on Islam and Muslims.
They developed the Eastern Question for this purpose. First, they wanted to change the theo-political maps of Islam, ruin its authentic sources, turn Muslims into people who are not connected to Allah, and become slaves who bow to imperialist masters. Once this theo-political strategy was successfully implemented, it would be possible to implement geo-political strategies much more easily.
That is why the British first invented Wahhabism two centuries ago, which means rootlessness, to change the founding creedal sources of Islam, degrade the authentic sources of Islam, turn Muslims from people who turned to Allah, turned towards Allah, and surrendered to Him into slaves who bowed to imperialist masters, wanted to do that.
Through Wahhabism, they also created neo-Salafis, which means neo-abolitionists, through terrorism. With the neo-Salafis, they established an anarchic source that would degrade Islam from the inside and, through them, both a form of rebellion that would oppose the Ottoman Empire and an anarchy psychology that would carry the Islamic world to the edge of geo-political and geo-economic chaos and anarchy.
Through neo-Salafis, and from there through terrorist organizations, they left the Islamic world with a psychology of anarchy that had been created by the slaves, which would move the Islamic world to the brink of both theo-political and geo-strategic and geo-economic chaos, anarchy, and division.
THE EASTERN QUESTION AND THE BRITISH MIDDLE EAST ORDER
The first target of the Eastern Question was to move Islam (as an actor that makes history) away from Islam in this way.
As an inevitable result of this, they started to apply the project of moving the Islamic world away from Islam more easily and comfortably. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the abolition of the caliphate, the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, and the removal of the caliphate, which gained meaning and reality with the existence of the Union of Islam, the Islamic world's largest religious and political organization, made it possible for both the state of Israel to be established and for the Islamic world to be divided and dozens of puppet "tribal states" to be created.
After the change and collapse of the theo-political maps of the Islamic world, this was the only way the drawing of the geo-political maps could be carried out much more easily!
Turkish academia is lacking in the depth to see this burning reality and a solid civilization ideal.
This chaotic, peripheral-anarchic Middle East order established by the British through their theo-political strategies must be overthrown. The Middle East must be restructured.
Yeni Safak/Anadolu Agency – November 1, 2023
Hamas presents ‘comprehensive vision’ to halt Israeli assault on Gaza
Leader Ismail Haniyeh says plan includes opening border crossings, prisoner exchange, self-determination
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday his group has presented a “comprehensive vision” to halt the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip.
“This vision starts with halting the aggression, opening the border crossings, exchanging prisoners, and opening a political horizon for establishing a Palestinian state and for self-determination,” Haniyeh said in a televised speech.
“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, however, is procrastinating and deceiving his supporters with false promises,” he added.
Haniyeh said the current conflict was caused by Netanyahu “who leads a ‘right-wing racist fascist' group.”
The Hamas leader demanded supporters of Israel, including the US, to “stop hindering international efforts to halt aggression.”
The Israeli army has expanded its air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip, which has been under relentless airstrikes since the surprise attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.
More than 10,300 people have since been killed in the conflict, including at least 8,796 Palestinians and more than 1,538 Israelis.
Besides the large number of casualties and displacement, basic supplies are running low for the 2.3 million people in Gaza due to the Israeli siege.
Countercurrents – November 1, 2023
U.S. and Israel Mulling International Peacekeeping Force For Gaza Strip
by Countercurrents Collective
U.S. and Israeli officials are mulling an international peacekeeping force for the Gaza Strip should Israel successfully remove Hamas from power, Bloomberg reported, suggesting U.S. troops could take part in the deployment.
The two countries have been “exploring options” for Gaza’s future as Israel escalates its ground assault on the Palestinian enclave, including several different peacekeeping arrangements, officials familiar with the discussions told the outlet on Tuesday.
“One option would grant temporary oversight to Gaza to countries from the region, backed by troops from the U.S., UK, Germany and France. Ideally, it would also include representation from Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates,” Bloomberg reported.
While the officials stressed that the conversations are still in an early stage, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hinted at the issue in recent comments to lawmakers, suggesting Washington is deeply involved in the planning.
“We cannot have a reversion to the status quo with Hamas running Gaza. We also cannot have – and the Israelis start with this proposition themselves – Israel running or controlling Gaza,” he said at a Tuesday Senate hearing. “Between those shoals are a variety of possible permutations that we are looking at very closely now, as are other countries.”
Though Blinken did not elaborate on those possibilities, officials told Bloomberg that they also include the creation of a peacekeeping force modeled on the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, under which the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) monitor areas of the Sinai Peninsula. The Israeli government believes that idea is “worthy of consideration,” one official said.
Under a third arrangement, the UN would be granted “temporary governance” of Gaza, although Israeli officials are reportedly less enthusiastic about the plan, viewing it as “impractical.”
In announcing Israel’s ongoing ground operation in the Palestinian enclave, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the country was seeking to “destroy Hamas” and create a new “security regime.” He emphasized that Israel must not be responsible for “day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip,” suggesting it would seek to hand off governance to a third party.
U.S. President Joe Biden is hesitant to place “even a small contingent of American troops in harm’s way,” and is still far from a final decision, according to Bloomberg. Though the White House has discussed the need to establish a sovereign Palestinian state after the current conflict, exactly how to achieve that goal “has barely featured in discussions” among U.S. officials.
The latest bout of violence in Gaza erupted following a deadly Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, which killed some 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have carried out heavy airstrikes on the territory in the weeks since, leaving more than 8,000 dead, and have gradually stepped up a major ground attack, which officials say could go on for months.
Yemen Confirms Joining Israel-Gaza Conflict
Media reports said:
The Houthi government in Sanaa said on Tuesday that it has launched drones and missiles against Israel in support of the Palestinian cause and will continue doing so. At least one missile flew over Saudi Arabia, putting the kingdom’s air defenses on alert.
“Our Armed Forces launched a large batch of ballistic and cruise missiles and a large number of drones at various targets of the Israeli enemy in the occupied territories,” said Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces.
Tuesday’s launch was “the third operation in support of our oppressed brethren in Palestine,” Saree said, adding that the Houthi military “will continue to carry out more qualitative strikes with missiles and drones until the Israeli aggression stops.”
Yemen undertook the campaign “out of a sense of religious, moral, humanitarian and national responsibility, and in response to the demands of our Yemeni people and the demands of free peoples, and to provide relief to our oppressed people in Gaza,” according to the spokesman.
“The position of our Yemeni people towards the Palestinian issue is firm and principled, and that the Palestinian people have the full right to self-defense in pursuit of their full legitimate rights,” Saree added.
The Israeli military has recently deployed ground troops into Gaza, following weeks of artillery and air strikes, in pursuit of its war on Hamas – a Palestinian militant group responsible for the October 7 incursion into nearby Israeli settlements.
The effect of Tuesday’s missile and drone strike was unknown. At least one missile crashed in the deserts of Jordan, causing no damage or casualties.
For the first time, however, the missiles flew over Saudi Arabia, which caused the kingdom to activate its air defenses. The kingdom had been fighting the Houthis since 2015, accusing the Shia community of being Iranian proxies. The two sides seemed ready to make peace this spring, after a Chinese-mediated deal between Riyadh and Tehran.
Earlier this month, the US Navy claimed its ships had shot down several missiles or drones fired towards Israel over the Red Sea. The Pentagon did not directly attribute these to Yemen, however.
Gaza, Now A ‘Graveyard’ For Children, Says UN Agency
UNICEF news said:
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reiterated its call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, saying the conflict is killing thousands of kids in Gaza and putting many more at risk from the violence and a water crisis.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children,” UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters on Tuesday in Geneva. “It is a living hell for everyone else.” He noted that more than 3,450 children in the Palestinian enclave have already been killed, and the death toll rises significantly every day.
Elder made his comments as Israel escalated its ground offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas terrorist attacks that killed an estimated 1,400 people on October 7. Gaza’s water system also has been crippled by the conflict, contributing to an overall death toll of more than 8,000 in the territory.
“The threats to children go beyond bombs and mortars,” Elder said. He added that Gaza’s water production capacity has been cut to 5% of its normal level, putting more than 1 million children at risk of dying from dehydration. Many children have been sickened by drinking salty water out of desperation.
Elder noted that even before the latest war between Israel and Hamas, more than three-fourths of Gaza’s children were identified as needing mental health support because of the trauma they had faced. “When the fighting stops, the cost to children and their communities will be borne out for generations to come,” he said.
With Gaza’s children “living through a nightmare,” the UNICEF spokesman said, Israel must end its siege of the territory. He called for all access crossings into Gaza to be open, allowing for the safe passage of food, water, fuel, medical supplies, and other humanitarian aid. “And if there is no ceasefire – no water, no medicine, and no release of abducted children – then we hurtle toward even greater horrors afflicting innocent children.”
Israel’s government has blasted the UN, arguing that the body has not sufficiently condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. West Jerusalem’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, announced on Monday that members of his delegation would respond by donning yellow stars, alluding to the labels that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust. “From this day on, each time you look at me, you will remember what staying silent in the face of evil means,” he said in a speech to the UN Security Council.
Gaza Horror Cannot Be Justified, Says Putin
A media report said:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned the ongoing bombing campaign waged by Israel against the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, stating it cannot be justified by anything.
The Russian president made the remarks on Monday as he delivered a speech ahead of a closed-doors meeting with members of the Russian Security Council and heads of law enforcement agencies.
“The horrible events currently unfolding in the Gaza Strip, when hundreds of thousands of innocent people are getting indiscriminately annihilated, have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from bombardment, cannot be justified by anything,” Putin stated.
Israel’s actions in the Palestinian enclave only invoke rage, Putin argued, adding, however, that one should not be led by “emotions” in properly addressing the situation in the Middle East.
“When you are watching bloodied children, dead children, suffering of the elderly, death of medics – fists are clenching and tears are welling up. Yet we should not, we cannot allow ourselves to be led by emotions,” the president said.
The ongoing crisis in the Middle East started with a “terrorist attack” on Israeli civilians, Putin noted. However, instead of “punishing” those behind it, Israel “unfortunately” opted for “vengeance” and assigned “collective responsibility” for it, Putin added.
Top UN Official Resigns Over Body’s Failure To Stop ‘Genocide’ Of Palestinians
The director of the UN’s human rights office (OHCHR) in New York, Craig Mokhiber, has resigned from his post, citing the body’s failure to properly address the Israel-Palestine crisis. Instead of doing its job, the UN has “surrendered to the power of the U.S.” and given in to the “Israeli lobby,” while the “European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase,” the senior official argued.
“Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it,” Mokhiber said in a letter to UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Volker Turk, published on Tuesday.
The official squarely described the ongoing Israeli action in the Gaza Strip as “genocide,” acknowledging that this word “has often been subject to political abuse.”
“But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology … leaves no room for doubt or debate,” Mokhiber argued.
The UN official wrote: This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine.
The governments of the U.S., the UK, and “much of Europe are wholly complicit in the horrific assault,” not only through a mere failure to fulfill their international obligations but by “actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities,” Mokhiber stated. The “cover” is further reinforced by “Western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent,” which has been “continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred,” he stressed.
Mokhiber believes the UN used to have “principles” and “authority” rooted in the body’s “integrity,” such as during apartheid in South Africa, but it has lost all of the above over the years. The UN has repeatedly failed to stop genocides, Mokhiber noted, listing events in Rwanda and Bosnia, the genocide of the Yazidis by the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), and the Rohingya in Myanmar as examples.
“In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to the power of the US and to the fear of the Israel Lobby, to abandon these principles, and to retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures,” he stated.
To fix the situation, the UN should “learn from the principled stance taken in cities around the world in recent days as masses of people stand up against the genocide, even at risk of beatings and arrest,” he suggested. Apart from that, he called upon the body to drop the “illusory two-state solution,” advocating the creation of a “single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine,” which would ensure the “dismantling” of Israel, described by the official as a “deeply racist, settler-colonial project.”
EU May Become Complicit In ‘Genocide’, Says Spanish Official
Media reports said:
Spanish Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra has urged European leaders to take immediate action against Israel, including severing diplomatic ties and imposing economic sanctions, amid the intensified bombing and expanded ground operations against Hamas militants in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
She also called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be prosecuted for the alleged war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza.
“After this hellish night in Gaza, I have a very simple but very important message for European leaders. Do not make us complicit in genocide. Act. Not in our name,” Belarra said in a passionate video message on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.
Addressing the severity of the current situation in Gaza and Israel’s disproportionate retaliation, the minister highlighted the termination of internet and telephone services in the strip, claiming that the move “has a very clear objective” of guaranteeing that “Israel commits crimes against humanity without consequences.”
“Our inaction is turning us into accomplices,” the minister stressed, arguing that “Israel believes that its international alliances guarantee its impunity.”
“We have to act now, tomorrow will be too late,” she continued, voicing her message to the EU leaders: “Cut diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Carry out exemplary economic sanctions against those responsible for this genocide. And without a doubt, let’s take Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court, so that he can be tried for what he is, a war criminal.”
She also appealed to EU citizens to take to the streets and raise their voice so that “this genocide” comes to an end.
At least 52 mosques destroyed in Israeli attacks on Gaza
Conflict has turned Gaza Strip into ‘disaster zone,’ with over 1.5M people displaced from their homes, says head of media office
Israeli attacks on Gaza have completely destroyed 52 mosques and caused varying degrees of damage to 110 other mosques, the government media office in the besieged enclave said on Wednesday.
Salama Marouf, head of the government's media office, told the press that 2,510 students have so far been killed in the ongoing conflict.
He said that the conflict has turned the Gaza Strip into a “disaster zone, with over 1.5 million people forcibly displaced from their homes, seeking refuge in shelters.”
Marouf said that the Israeli forces have also destroyed 82 government offices and dozens of service institutions and public facilities.
"212 schools sustained varying degrees of damage as a result of the attacks, and 45 schools were out of service," he added.
The Israeli army has expanded its air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip, which has been under relentless airstrikes since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.
More than 10,300 people have since been killed in the conflict, including at least 8,796 Palestinians and more than 1,538 Israelis.
Besides the large number of casualties and displacement, basic supplies are running low for the 2.3 million residents in Gaza due to the Israeli siege.
US Muslim group expresses disappointment over Biden's stance on Gaza
CAIR says it’s 'running out of words to describe the American Muslim community’s disappointment with the Biden administration’s refusal to demand a cease-fire'
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Wednesday condemned repeated Israeli attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and expressed its disappointment over the Biden administration’s refusal to demand a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
"We are running out of words to describe the American Muslim community’s disappointment with the Biden administration’s refusal to demand a cease-fire," CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister “Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t accidentally killing civilians in the Jabalia refugee camp day after day; he is obviously doing so deliberately. At this point, President (Joe) Biden’s refusal to demand a cease-fire is bordering on the absurd," he said, adding: "For the sake of God, President Biden, stop this madness and demand a cease-fire.”
A series of Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday led to hundreds of casualties, according to the Interior Ministry in the besieged enclave.
Israeli forces bombed the densely populated camp for a second straight day on Wednesday, killing and wounding dozens of people, according to Palestinian authorities.
The Israeli army has expanded its air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip, which has been under relentless airstrikes since the Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise cross-border offensive on Oct. 7.
More than 10,300 people have since been killed in the conflict, including at least 8,796 Palestinians and more than 1,538 Israelis, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
