Wednesday 27th of November 2024
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the reality of the massacre with their own eyes....

Zainab al-Jaabari, 79, sits a few dozen meters in front of the scene of the massacre. She is waiting for her family members to return from checking for her seven sons and grandchildren, who were in the prayer hall praying Fajr at the time it took place.

Her family members arrived to see the reality of the massacre with their own eyes: more than a hundred people were killed, and their bodies were now scattered and mixed in the prayer hall in the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City. It is possible their delay in returning now is due to their horror at what they found, or perhaps because they can’t imagine how to tell Zainab that her seven sons and grandchildren have been killed.

 

By Tareq S. Hajjaj / Mondoweiss

 

At dawn on Saturday, August 10, the Israeli army bombed a mosque while dozens of displaced people were praying the Fajr prayer, the daily Islamic prayer offered in the early morning. The bombing killed more than a hundred people, most of whom were dismembered or destroyed beyond recognition. For this reason the identification of the bodies has so far been incomplete.

The majority of the martyrs in this latest massacre are first- or second-degree relatives because the prayer hall that the Israeli army bombed belongs to a school housing displaced families from Gaza City. The decimated prayer hall belongs to the Tabi’in School, and is only used by the displaced people sheltering in the school.

At the time of the bombing the prayer hall was filled with men. Now, many women who may have become widows and many children who may have become orphans, are sitting in front of the classrooms that were not reached by the bombing waiting to be told the fate of their families.

The Israeli army said that it bombed the prayer hall because there were armed elements from the Islamic Jihad movement and Hamas there, but the displaced people in the school confirmed that there were no armed men among them. Hamas also denied the Israeli allegations and issued a statement saying that there were no armed men in the school.

We live in the school, more than a hundred families, there are no fighters among us, there are no armed men among us, they are all children,” Zainab al-Jaabari told Mondoweiss.

“The Israeli army left us nothing; they burned the trees, destroyed the houses, killed the people, and destroyed the land; what can we do? There is nothing we can do; we are children and women here; we cannot fight. Have you ever seen a country do all these criminal acts? Have you ever seen people who have all these crimes happen to them?” she says.

“All we have is prayers; we pray against America that helps Israel to slaughter us, and we pray against everyone who watches us being slaughtered and does nothing to help us.”

“We no longer have anything, and there is nowhere to go; the only thing we have is the sea, and even there, we will find death.”

Al-Jaabari’s daughters went to the Baptist Hospital near the bombed school so they could identify their siblings. “I can’t move much. I sent my daughters to the hospital to check on the rest of my children, but none of them have returned yet; all my sons and grandchildren were praying at the time of the bombing.”

Hours after the massacre, the names of the martyrs who were identified were announced, and among the names were seven martyrs from the Al-Jaabari family. They are Zainab’s sons and grandchildren.

Every 70 kilograms of remains is considered a martyr

In the mosque, people stand in a row close to each other as they pray, and after the bombing, the worshipers remained intermingled as well, as remains and corpses. Large numbers of martyrs were not able to be identified, and entire families were wiped out.

Survivors of this massacre are describing a new and horrifying experience they are being forced to endure in aftermath of Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip: they cannot even identify the remains of their loved ones.

Because the rescue teams couldn’t identify many of the human remains collected due to the intensity of the bombing, the doctors at Baptist Hospital were not able to identify each martyr individually. Instead, the doctors have started collecting body parts in plastic bags and giving 70 kilos of remains to the family of a martyr who has gone missing.

Hassan Ahmad told Mondoweiss that he searched extensively for the body of his 6-year-old son Ali, and after hours of searching, he did not find a trace of him. He then went to the Baptist Hospital to ask about his son, or to find any part of his body so I could identify him and bury him. After a long search that did not yield any results, the doctors at the Baptist Hospital gave him a plastic bag containing 18 kilograms of human remains and told him, “This is your son; go and bury him.”

“I don’t know if this is my son or not, I don’t know what I’m carrying in this bag. They said he’s my son, and I don’t know anything, and I don’t see anything of my son in this bag,” Ahmad explained.

“I collect my husband’s body parts.”

Manar Al-Zaim’s voice is hoarse from screaming. She is still trembling from fear. Al-Zaim, 43, recounted to Mondoweiss how she rushed to the prayer hall immediately after the bombing to look for her husband.

“People were praying there; they bombed them with three missiles when the bombing started, and I saw the fire; I couldn’t control myself; my husband was among them. I ran like crazy to find my husband; I entered the prayer hall, and the fire was burning in it; I found a large number of young men whose bodies were on fire, I tried to put out the fires in their bodies, then I started looking for my husband, I didn’t find him, I found some of his remains and recognized them, but I didn’t find my husband in full.”

“We are all civilians here, fleeing from death, bombing, and destruction, we no longer have a safe place, we no longer have any place to go, here is the Israeli army killing hundreds in the mosque while they were praying, and what did the world do after this crime?”

I saw my father’s carnage

Muhammad Hamida, 12, recounted to Mondoweiss how he found his father, who had been torn apart in the Israeli attack. He says that he went with his older brother to the prayer hall after the bombing to rescue their father, who was praying at the time. 

“When we arrived, we couldn’t enter because of the intensity of the fire, blood, and body parts, but we wanted to check on my father. Moments later, we could enter the prayer hall but we couldn’t bear the scene.”

“People were cut up, there was a lot of blood on the ground, and body parts and small pieces of worshipers’ bodies were scattered everywhere. We found my father lying on the ground there. We recognized him, and our relatives helped us drag him out of the prayer hall. We found a human head stuck between his feet when we took him out. I was stunned with fear. I have never seen scenes like this in my life. I hope I never see them again.”

“They will kill us all; we are here alone; no one cares about us. They killed my father, and a month ago, they killed my two uncles, and they will kill everyone who remains in Gaza.”

Fatima Hassona conducted the interviews for this report from Gaza.

https://scheerpost.com/2024/08/13/the-fajr-massacre-every-70-kg-bag-of-human-remains-is-considered-a-martyr/

 

 

 

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SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bphJs-ImRd0

"gallant included"....

 

Israel PM And Defence Minister Clash Over Gaza Hostage Deal
By AFP - Agence France Presse

 

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant exchanged criticism on Monday over stalled talks for a ceasefire deal that would free hostages held in Gaza.

"The reason a hostage deal is stalling is in part because of Israel", Israeli media, including television channel Kan, reported Gallant saying in a private briefing for a parliamentary committee on Monday.

Gallant was discussing the choice Israel faced between a ceasefire deal that could end the conflicts in the north with Lebanese Hezbollah and in Gaza, and escalating the war, Kan reported.

"I and the defence establishment support the first option," he said, rather than talk of "'total victory' and all that nonsense", a phrase frequently used by Netanyahu in his communications.

 

Within hours of Gallant's words leaking to the media, Netanyahu hit back in a statement issued by his office, in which he accused Gallant of jeopardising a deal to secure the release of hostages.

"When Gallant adopts the anti-Israel narrative, he harms the chances of reaching a hostage release deal," Netanyahu said, adding that Hamas supremo Yahya Sinwar is the one "who has been and remains the only obstacle to a hostage deal."

He concluded by saying that Israel's only choice was "to achieve total victory", which "obligates everyone - including Gallant".

https://www.barrons.com/news/israel-pm-and-defence-minister-clash-over-gaza-hostage-deal-33da1b7f

 

 

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elite clowns...

 

The deterioration of Western elites

 

BY Vladimir Mashin

 

Being 10 months into Israel’s war in Gaza have been eye-opening – even for the US ruling circles. On August 6, the Washington Post published an article titled “Netanyahu has managed to frustrate just about everyone”. It states: “President Biden is at his wits end. The Israeli military is exasperated. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis who regularly take to the streets suspect their leader of trying to prolong the war. And there are the international organisations, European powers, hostage families and members of the US Congress”.

According to the text, Netanyahu is annoying everybody; it is not only the Palestinians that are suffering, being subjected to genocide, but the entire Middle East is tense.

Meanwhile, Western elites are pretending that they do not realise what is happening, or ignore and turn a blind eye to obvious things without thinking about the consequences.

A lot has already been said about the decline in the level of competence and professionalism of the ruling circles of the Western powers. In this regard, I would like to recall the statement of our great classic, Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov, made exactly 200 years ago:

Such changes do occur, I will agree, 

Changes in minds and morals, governments and rulers, 

There are important people that were known to be fools, 

I am afraid to mention them but you will agree:

Some weren’t successful in the army, some in poetry, 

And others – everybody says –

Have grown much too clever in recent years. 

The Turkish Daily Sabah wrote on August 7, 2024, that “superficial people are at the head of many Western administrations, which is one of the reasons for the West’s unconditional support for Israel”. They consent to all Israeli atrocities, violations of basic human rights, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal attacks against the Palestinian people.

The countries of the Global South are beginning to look at the US differently; they see how many flaws there are in the US political system, which is especially clearly illustrated in the current election campaign.

In addition, the current government structures are first of all tending to their own selfish interests without paying due attention to ensuring US national interests.

For example, here is what Al Jazeera wrote on August 5: “In international relations, the generally accepted opinion is that the United States, as the world’s only superpower and the main sponsor of the Israeli army, has leverage over its much smaller ally. However, the last 10 months have demonstrated that the situation is different; it is Israel that has more influence over the US government, which has yielded to its dictates at almost every stage of the war in Gaza. The end result has been more and more embarrassment for the Biden administration, as some analysts have suggested that the US appears to be a ‘junior partner’ in US-Israeli relations”.

By allowing Israel to dictate the conditions of the Gaza war, the US has endangered its own interests 

Current events show that the power structures of the main Western states are noticeably moving away from the population and that they do not enjoy the trust of their voters, which is why there are more and more questions as to their competence and professionalism.

Citizens of Western countries, primarily the US, France, UK, Germany and others, have many qualms with and complaints to their rulers, and hence the task of renewing the ruling circles is becoming more urgent and topical.

 

Vladimir Mashin, Candidate of Historical Sciences, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

 

https://journal-neo.su/2024/08/13/the-deterioration-of-western-elites/

 

 

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BICOM’s spin

Western journalists are accepting trips to the Middle East organised by pro-Israel advocacy groups, it has emerged.

Reporters from the Spectator and Newsweek magazines and a Sunday Express correspondent were among “top flight journalists from across Europe” who the groups helped to visit Israel in June.

The five-day itinerary, seen by Declassified, promised briefings with a former Mossad chief, Israel’s state-owned arms company and soldiers serving in Gaza.

A government lawyer who defended Israel at the Hague and a minister from Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline Likud Party were also on the line up.

It was organised by the Europe Israel Press Association (EIPA) in tandem with the America Middle East Press Association. 

Declassified understands that the groups offered to pay for travel and accommodation, although it is unclear which reporters accepted financial support. EIPA does not disclose its funders.

This author was invited on the trip but declined on ethical grounds and monitored its progress online instead.

Social media posts from the EIPA confirm that around two dozen journalists received a briefing on the Middle East from Zohar Palti, who “heads the Political-Military Bureau at Israel[’s] Ministry of Defence.”

The group boasted: “Before this role, he led the Mossad Security Intelligence Directorate and was deputy head of the Research Division in the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Corps”.

Palti gave a similar talk to another EIPA delegation earlier this year.

Journalists who went on the June trip were offered a chance to observe the Lebanese border and receive a briefing about the “current intelligence picture and delicate situation between Israel and Hezbollah and Iran – pending security developments”. 

They would then meet with Israeli residents evacuated from their homes near the border, before visiting Israeli arms firm Rafael for a briefing about anti-missile aerial technology.

Ellie Cook, a Newsweek security reporter based in London, wrote aboutvisiting the Lebanon-Israel border as part of the trip. 

One-sided view

There were no Palestinians listed as speakers on the itinerary seen by Declassified. Instead, the journalists would be presented with a one-sided view of the conflict, as perceived only through the eyes of Israelis.

These were set to include family members of hostages and a visit to bereaved members of Nir Oz, a  kibbutz near the Gaza border which was the site of “some of the worst atrocities of Hamas on October 7”.

Tamar Kaplan, a lawyer who represented Israel at the International Court of Justice hearings in the Hague, was another figure who met the group.

Other days would involve a trip to the Erez Crossing on the Gazan border where the journalists would be briefed by COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry unit, “about humanitarian aid going daily into Gaza”.

Israel has repeatedly denied that it is restricting aid from reaching two million Palestinians in Gaza despite the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor seeking an arrest warrant against prime minister Netanyahu for “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”.

Reporters on the trip were further promised a “Field Briefing by [an] IDF officer on the Gaza border” and a chance to “⁠visit IDF special unit Yahalomresponsible for underground warfare in Gaza – pending security developments and unit’s availability”.

Days after that briefing, Marco Giannangeli, diplomatic editor at Britain’s right-wing Sunday Express, wrote an article about Hamas citing “a special briefing” he had received from “tunnel experts for the Israeli Defence Force”.

Giannangeli confirmed he was part of the press trip, writing about how “an IDF officer told a gathering of journalists attached to the Europe Israel Press Association (EIPA)…‘explosives were placed in kids’ rooms – children had to actually live surrounded by these explosives. That’s how cynical Hamas are’.”

 

Starmer’s ‘Islamist agenda’

The Express journalist used the trip to generate another article headlined Keir Starmer as PM ‘would spell open season for anti-semitism’ warns Israeli minister. 

Giannangeli was quoting Amichai Chikli, who is Netanyahu’s minister for diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, and an admirer of Tommy Robinson.

The Likud minister said of Starmer’s Labour Party: “Their policy is pro-Islamist. It’s the green and red alliance – green for Islam, red for communism”.

The Spectator’s Angus Colwell also covered Chikli’s comments for his magazine, although with more balance. Colwell pointed out: “This is not a charge that Starmer has faced in Britain. On the contrary, the pro-Gaza movement have often been opposed to the Labour leadership.”

In March, Chikli made headlines for telling reporters on a previous EIPA press trip that London had become “the most Antisemitic capital in Europe” where Jews might be attacked just for speaking Hebrew. The comments were picked up by the Daily Mail, GB News and the Jewish Chronicle. 

GB News reported at the time that “During a heated press conference with the Europe Israel Press Association, [Chikli] called Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez an ‘anti Semite’ and said US President Joe Biden caved into ‘political pressure’ by criticising the Israeli campaign in Gaza.” 

These previous comments may explain why so many reporters from right-wing Spanish language outlets attended the latest press trip. In addition to two Americans, the EIPA brought “22 journalists from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.”

Israeli news site blinker.co.il reported that “senior journalists from the most important newspapers in Europe and the USA: Europa Press; The Mirror; The Telegraph; Newsweek and many others” had joined the trip. 

Articles referencing parts of the trip itinerary were not readily identifiable on the Mirror or Telegraph websites.

‘Public diplomacy’

Founded by Israeli rabbi Menachem Margolin in 2012, EIPA appears to have merged with the European Jewish Association (EJA) in around 2019. 

EIPA spokesperson Nir Natan told Declassified that the group “does not hold any public or political views regarding Israel beyond the country’s right, like any other nation, to defend its citizens, and has therefore never expressed any public or political positions. 

“The organization’s activities are entirely professional—providing reliable information to any journalist or media outlet interested in it.” 

He characterised the group’s work as “public diplomacy” and said it “does not support any specific political approach and offers journalists access to both government and opposition officials.”

Natan said journalists who went on the trip had “no conditions on how they cover the events” and that “there is absolute freedom of journalism!”

He added: “Since its founding, EIPA has faithfully served hundreds of journalists, editors, commentators, broadcasters, and bloggers from leading media outlets all over Europe, and recently also from the USA.”

In response to the lack of Palestinian voices on the itinerary, EIPA said: “We do not pretend to represent the Palestinians. And the reason is quite simple—we are proud Jews concerned about Israel’s image and regretfully see that pro-Palestinian propaganda does not need our assistance.”

Cook from Newsweek, Colwell from the Spectator and the Express’ Giannangeli were approached for comment.

EIPA is not the first to arrange such press trips, with the lobby group Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) having organised controversial delegations in the past.

Simon Childs, a journalist at Novara Media who went on a BICOM trip when he worked for Vice, told Declassified: “I visited Israel with BICOM wondering if I would find a North Korea-style propaganda tour. In fact I found something more subtle, with a modicum Palestinian representation in an attempt to present the story of a two sided conflict in which Israel is besieged – rather than a longstanding illegal occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people.

“I think it’s possible for journalists to attend press junkets like this while also seeing them for what they are and maintaining a critical distance. After my tour of Israel with BICOM, I visited parts of the occupied West Bank, with the help of some anti-occupation Israelis, which I would have struggled to do otherwise.

“The problem is that journalists have every incentive to follow the path of least resistance and swallow BICOM’s spin.”

https://www.declassifieduk.org/how-pro-israel-groups-shape-global-media-coverage-of-palestine/

 

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