Tag: Israeli atrocities

  • The war will last for ‘months’, says the Israeli Defence Minister to US envoy

    The war will last for ‘months’, says the Israeli Defence Minister to US envoy

    Israel pressed its offensive in the Gaza Strip on Friday after telling a key supporter, the United States of America that the war to crush Hamas will last “more than several months”.

    On Thursday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met in Tel Aviv with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

    During their meeting, Mr. Gallant warned that Israel’s fight with Hamas “will require a period of time — it will last more than several months, but we will win and we will destroy them”.

    Speaking in Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Israel to take more care to protect civilians in Gaza.

    “I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives — not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful,” said Mr. Biden, whose government has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid.

    White House spokesman John Kirby, meanwhile, said Washington was “not dictating terms” to Israel and that the timeline given by Gallant was “consistent” with what Israeli officials had previously said.

    Mr Netanyahu on Thursday vowed to carry on “until victory”, and Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the war would continue “with or without international support”.

    Mr Sullivan on Friday will head to the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with Palestinian Authority leaders, a US official said on condition of anonymity.

    The West Bank, which is ruled by the Palestinian Authority (PA), has seen a surge in violence since October 7.

    There, the Palestinian health ministry said 11 people had been killed since the Israeli military launched a raid in the city of Jenin and its refugee camp earlier this week.

    The war in Gaza has led to increased popular support for Hamas in the West Bank, further weakening the internationally recognized PA.

  • Pakistani Ambassador at UN lauded for Palestine resolution speech

    Pakistani Ambassador at UN lauded for Palestine resolution speech

    Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, delivered a strong statement on the war that is taking place in Gaza during the 10th Emergency Special Session on December 12.

    He expressed Pakistan’s allegiance to the resolution submitted by the Arab and Islamic countries proposing an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and release of all hostages. Ambassador Munir also criticised America, one of the permanent members, for vetoing that resolution. Calling out the friend of Israel, for proposing an amendment that “condemns one side while exonerating the other”. He called it “unfair and inequitable”.

    The Pakistani ambassador reminded the world that Israel has dropped 25,000 tons of explosives on Gaza which is nearly equivalent to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He stressed that “Israel’s goal is not to erase Hamas, this is a war against the Palestinian people, not just to erase people but to erase the entire idea of Palestine. It is the same as racial slaughter conducted by settler colonial power in the past.”

    Munir Akram ended the speech by calling out the UN that its duty should not be “to justify the genocide that is taking place.”

    Riyad Mansour, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, especially thanked the Pakistani Ambassador for his stance and the effective speech by calling him a lawyer of the Palestinian cause in the tenth emergency session. He said that Ambassador Munir Akram shredded to pieces the amendments proposed in favour of perpetrators. He praised the Pakistani Ambassador stating that due to his efforts “even one of the opposing countries voted in favour of the resolution today”.

    Member states then adopted a resolution demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and well as “ensuring humanitarian access”.

    It passed with a large majority of 153 in favour and 10 against, with 23 abstentions.

  • Israel drops leaflets containing ayats from The Quran on Palestinians

    Israel drops leaflets containing ayats from The Quran on Palestinians

    Residents of Khan Yonis in the besieged Gaza Strip have received leaflets quoting a verse in the Quran which states “The flood overtook them as they were wrongdoers.”

    The witnesses say that the Israeli army has showered the leaflets through a plane in the area, the latest focus of Israeli military’s ground offensive.

    Journalist Aamer Tabsh in Khan Younis says he saw Israeli planes drop thousands of fliers.

    Tabsh says residents are convinced the reference to the epic flood of Noah in the Quran and the Bible “means that something much worse is coming.”
    Some are linking it to Hamas’ name for its October 7 onslaught against Israel, “Al Aqsa Deluge,” or flood.

    Al-Jazeera points to recent reports that the Israeli forces are considering flooding Hamas’s subterranean tunnel network with seawater to force out its fighters.

  • Israeli police attack worshippers in Ramzan during Al-Aqsa Mosque raid

    Israeli police attack worshippers in Ramzan during Al-Aqsa Mosque raid

    Israeli police have attacked and arrested Palestinian worshippers in a violent raid on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Ramzan.

    In a statement, police said they had “arrested and removed over 350 individuals that violently barricaded” themselves inside the mosque in the Old City of annexed East Jerusalem.

    According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, injuries were reported as a result of the raid but it was not clear how many were hurt. It was also said that medics were prevented from reaching the mosque by the Israeli forces. 

    “I was sitting on a chair reciting (Qur’an),” an elderly woman told Reuters while sitting outside the mosque. “They hurled stun grenades, one of them hit my chest,” she said as she began to cry.

    The Israeli police claimed in a statement that they had to enter the mosque after “masked agitators” locked themselves inside with fireworks, sticks and stones.

    “When the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators,” the statement said, adding that one of the police officers was wounded in the leg.

  • Bella Hadid wants your support finding the right organisations to help flood victims in Pakistan

    Bella Hadid wants your support finding the right organisations to help flood victims in Pakistan

    Supermodel Bella Hadid has requested her followers to guide her on ways to help the flood victims in Pakistan.

    Sharing a video on her Instagram stories, she wrote , “Finding real ways to help Pakistan.” 

    Floods triggered by incessant rains have killed more than 1000 people including 300 hundred children.

    The catastrophic flooding has rendered millions of people homeless during the last few days.

    Earlier this year, Bella claimed she was “shadow banned” by Instagram for posting about Palestine after Israeli authorities attacked worshippers at al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday.

    “If you really would like to silence me , just like the journalists, or really anyone trying to educate about Palestine, @instagram, I will continue to come forward with peace , showing factual information about how the IDF, Israeli government, and Settlers attack innocent Palestinians for no reason , except for simply being Palestinian. This is all a breach of human rights, and if you continue to sensor us, is the biggest form of bias and Unjust censorship.”

    “But I will not continue to sit here and have my peoples name be slandered as if they are constantly doing something wrong to deserve this kind of abuse. Absolutely UNPROVOKED abuse. In their home , and on their land, that they have lived in for hundreds of years. Especially now, during the holy month of Ramadan. This is unprovoked,” added Bella.

    Bella is an ardent advocate of women’s rights as well. In February, she had called out India for the discrimination faced by Muslim women for wearing hijab.

  • Around 100 Palestinians injured as Israeli forces raid Al-Aqsa mosque

    Around 100 Palestinians injured as Israeli forces raid Al-Aqsa mosque

    Nearly 100 Palestinians suffered injuries when the Israeli security forces raided the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Friday, according to Al Jazeera.

    Al Jazeera reported that the Islamic endowment that runs the site said Israeli Police entered in force before dawn on Friday, as thousands of worshippers were gathered at the mosque for early morning prayers.

    “90 injured were transferred to Jerusalem hospitals and dozens of other injuries were treated in the field,” a Palestinian Red Crescent official told a French news agency, adding that they were due to rubber bullets, sound grenades, or assault.

    The Israeli raid is likely to incite violence as a large number of worshipers are expected today for Friday prayers with “videos circulating online showed Palestinians throwing rocks and police firing tear gas and stun grenades”.

  • Harry Potter’s Emma Watson shows solidarity with Palestinians

    Harry Potter’s Emma Watson shows solidarity with Palestinians

    British actor Emma Watson recently took to social media to share a message in support of the Palestinian movement.

    The actress who rose to fame for her portrayal of Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies — reposted a post originally shared by the Bad Activist Collective on Instagram on January 2.

    Watson accompanied the post with a quote from British-Australian scholar Sara Ahmed, which said “Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future.”

    The quote added, “Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.”

    Watson’s post garnered widespread acclaim and left many Pro-Palestinian netizens both surprised and elated.

    However, the actor has also been on the receiving end of criticism. Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan strongly criticised her post, calling Watson an “antisemite”.

  • Video: Mother protects son’s grave as Israel demolishes Muslim graveyard

    A Palestinian woman on Monday resisted Israeli police trying to push her from her son’s tombstone, located at the Al-Yusufiye cemetery in East Jerusalem, as she tried to hug it, reports Anadolu Agency.

    In the video, Alaa Nababta can be seen throwing her body on the ground near her son’s grave and crying.

    “Bury me here,” cried Nababta.

    “You will only exhume my son over my dead body,” she told the Israeli police who were unable to stop her from reaching her son’s grave.

    Nababta while talking to Anadolu Agency said that the Israeli authorities are after Palestinians in the city “whether they are alive or dead.”

    “Here is our cemetery, where else do we bury them?” asked Nababta.

    She added: “Every day we come here fearing that the grave will be bulldozed.”

    “As a mother, what do you think my feelings will be when I watch them try to raze my son’s grave? Pain, pain, and heartbreak.”

    On Monday, the Israeli municipality crews in Jerusalem and the Israeli Nature Authority, to establish a Jewish national park, renewed razing a part of the Al-Yusufiye cemetery, located near the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

    Dozens of Palestinians whose family members have been buried in the area for centuries arrived in the cemetery, fearing that the graves of their relatives will be razed.

  • Israel ‘aiming for a religious war’, claims official Palestinian website Wafa

    Israel ‘aiming for a religious war’, claims official Palestinian website Wafa

    Israeli police clashed with Muslim protestors on Sunday at a flashpoint Jerusalem Old City shrine as Jews were headed there to mark a religious holiday, reports Dawn.

    According to the police, in the early hours of the morning, Palestinian “youths began throwing stones at the Temple Mount esplanade towards police forces, who dispersed them”. There were no official reports of arrests or injuries.

    The incident took place on the Jewish festival of Tisha B’av, when according to tradition, both Jewish temples located on the Temple Mount were destroyed.

    The Waqf condemned the “violations and attacks” carried out by “Jewish fanatic groups, with the support and political cover of the Israeli government,” it said in a statement carried by official Palestinian website Wafa, claiming Israel was “aiming for a religious war”.

    Newly sworn-in premier Naftali Bennett, who is from Israel’s religious right but heads a coalition including leftist and Islamist parties, said he had “instructed that the organised and safe visits by Jews to the Temple Mount continue while maintaining order at the site”.

    In a second statement following the Waqf and PA condemnations, Bennett stressed that “freedom of worship on the Temple Mount will be fully preserved for Muslims as well”, pointing to the upcoming Eidul Azha.

  • Israeli airstrikes target Gaza again since ceasefire

    Israeli airstrikes target Gaza again since ceasefire

    Israeli aircraft struck Gaza on Wednesday in the first such attacks since the end of 11 days of cross-border fighting last month.

    The overnight air strikes gave way to calm by morning, and there were no reports of casualties on either side, reports Aljazeera.

    On Tuesday, hundreds of Israeli ultranationalists, some chanting “Death to Arabs”, paraded in East Jerusalem in a show of force that threatened to spark renewed violence, reported Dawn.

    The raids early on Wednesday come less than a month after Israel’s 11-day bombardment of Gaza in May.

    https://twitter.com/wwallxc/status/1404928255568846849

    The Israeli raids come two days after a new coalition government, headed by right-wing nationalist Naftali Bennet, took power on Sunday, ending Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year run as prime minister.