Israel has officially confirmed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead, killed in a chance encounter Wednesday with infantry and armored units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In a joint statement Thursday evening local time, titled “Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization who was responsible for planning and executing the October 7th Massacre, has been eliminated,” the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA) declared:

The IDF and ISA confirm that after a year-long pursuit, yesterday (Wednesday), October 16, 2024, IDF soldiers from the Southern Command eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip. Yahya Sinwar planned and executed the October 7th Massacre, promoted his murderous ideology both before and during the war, and was responsible for the murder and abduction of many Israelis.

Yahya Sinwar was eliminated after hiding for the past year behind the civilian population of Gaza, both above and below ground in Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip. The dozens of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the last year, and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination.

In recent weeks, IDF and ISA forces, under the command of the Southern Command, have been operating in the southern Gaza Strip, following IDF and ISA intelligence that indicated the suspected locations of senior members of Hamas. ​IDF soldiers of the 828th Brigade (Bislach) operating in the area identified and eliminated three terrorists. After completing the process of identifying the body, it can be confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was eliminated.

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2024/10/17/official-confirmation-hamas-leader-yahya-sinwar-is-dead-killed-trying-to-flee-gaza/

WITH A TARGET ON HIS BACK, HE WAS TRYING TO AVOID BEING KILLED... THE COWARD THEY SAY....

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

“Our language shouldn’t be designed to appease the oppressor.” Steve Salaita

Not “war in Gaza”. A war on Gaza.

Not “lives lost”. Mass killing and mutilation of civilians.

Not “self-defence”. A war on children. Snipers’ bullets in children’s heads.

Not “a tragic conflict”. Genocidal erasure of Gaza and its people.

Not defending “Israel’s right to exist”. State terrorism.

“It’s complex.” No it’s not. No two sides to genocide.

What part of the definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention do you say has not been met?

Systematic war crimes. Crimes against humanity. Genocidal actions. Bombing apartment blocks, refugee shelters and hospitals, burning Palestinians sheltering in tents. Wilful starvation. Withholding food, water, fuel, electricity, medical supplies. Killing healthcare, aid, and UN workers. Destruction of healthcare system. Ethnocide, ecocide, scholasticide.

Not “the most moral army in the world”. Perhaps the most immoral. Hundreds of videos filmed and posted by soldiers to social media platforms, a number of which can be viewed in Al Jazeera’s documentary “War Crimes in Gaza”. Evidence of war crimes and violations of international law including torture and inhumane treatment of detainees, use of human shields, and wanton destruction of buildings and civilian property. The burning of Shuja’iya, a neighbourhood of Gaza City, with a soldier’s voiceover, “We will annihilate them to dust. This is what we do to all our enemies.”

It was clear from October 2023 what was going to happen in Gaza. The IDF is acting in conformity with numerous public statements of Israeli leaders, members of Knesset, and top echelons of its military, from October 2023 expressing genocidal intent and incitement. Statements collated by Law4Palestine. Examples include:

“There are no uninvolved people … we must go in there and kill, kill, kill.” 

“They have no right to exist … they need to be exterminated.” 

“I want the possibility to behead, head after head.” 

“I have removed all restraints.” 

“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” 

“Erase all Gaza from the face of the earth.” 

“One of the options is to drop an atomic bomb on Gaza.”

Pause, and reflect on the horror of each of those statements.

Israel has created a new template for every other state to follow. All limits removed. Complete impunity. The so-called “rules-based order” torn to shreds.

Our government’s rhetorical strategy of “balance”. Express “concern” about Israel’s actions while repeating ad nauseamIsrael’s right to defend itself. No repercussions for Israel; implied consent to genocide. Gaslight protesters, smearing them as antisemitic, and disruptive to “social cohesion”. No two sides to genocide.

The hierarchy of death.

Indifference to Palestinian deaths as evidenced by our government’s rhetoric and inaction, and mainstream media’s reporting.

Mainstream media’s abominable failure.

Distortion and inversion of reality. Reporting Israel’s actions as exercising its “right of self-defence”, an assertion that is demonstrably false under international law; it is Palestinians who have a right of self-defence against the occupying power. Portraying Israel as victim, not perpetrator. Sanitised language and images. Sins of omission. Egregious failure to report heinous Israel’s war crimes, genocidal actions and ethnic cleansing. Exclusion of Palestinian civilians and commentators, human rights’ experts, and journalists reporting from Gaza.

Not Israel’s myths, lies, and propaganda. International law, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. No exceptions for an ally.

Not “endless cycles of violence.” Endless impunity.

Not “settlers”. Violent colonists.

7 October did not occur out of the blue. A statement of the obvious, not antisemitism. 7 October was preceded by decades of ethnic cleansing, land theft, occupation, subjugation, apartheid.

If you are ignorant of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians since 1948, you are wilfully ignorant.

Calling someone a “terrorist” or “terrorist sympathiser” is not an argument.

Palestinians have a right under international law to resist the occupying power. This right includes a right of armed resistance, which must carried out within the parameters of international law. The killing and taking of hostages on 7 October were war crimes.

The trauma of the Holocaust does not grant Israel immunity from prosecution for its own crimes.

“Never again” means never again for anyone.

No hierarchy of racism. All forms are equally abhorrent. No exceptionalising of antisemitism.

Zionism, a political ideology of the Israeli state: ethnonationalism; privileging of Jews over non-Jews in its laws, policies and practices; oppression of non-Jews; expansionism; and apartheid. Criticising a political ideology is not racist. Criticising racism is not racist.

The Zionist state of Israel was founded on a premise of ethnic exclusion and land theft, practices which continue. Criticising Israel is not antisemitic.

Zionists are not the arbiters of “free speech”. Nor are they arbiters of the meaning of pro-Palestinian expressions.

Liberation, justice and equality between the river and the sea. Peace and security cannot be achieved until Israel ends its illegal occupation and violent settler-colonialism between the river and the sea.

Criticising and protesting against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is the humanitarian response of every person who values all lives equally.

If you are ignorant of Israel’s war crimes, you are wilfully ignorant.

Which version of events do you accept? The lies and propaganda of Benjamin Netanyahu and Daniel Hagari, or the evidence and independent, expert opinions of the ICJ and ICC, UN experts, human rights’ organisations, surviving Palestinian civilians, journalists, and aid workers in Gaza, legal experts in international law, and genocide historians and scholars?

In conclusion, a rhetorical question for Israel’s apologists to contemplate.

In an essay published in “The Guardian” online on 13 August, 2024, As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel | Israel | The Guardian Omer Bartov, genocide historian, and former IDF soldier, asked:

“Will it ever be possible for Israel to discard the violent, exclusionary, militant, and increasingly racist aspects of its vision as it is embraced there by so many of its Jewish citizens?”

https://johnmenadue.com/terms-of-engagement-refusing-the-zionist-narrative/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

For years, the Israeli authorities have restricted food, fuel and essential supplies to the Palestinians in Gaza, turning the deliveries on and off at will. This contributed to the desperate Hamas outbreak on 7 October 2023. Since the beginning of this month, Israel has stopped almost all the deliveries.

Trucks stand in long lines at border crossings; ships are not allowed into ports; and the dock built by the US military collapsed before it could be of any use. Air drops into crowded Gaza have endangered those on the ground, and made the crowds a target for IDF attacks.

Long practiced in hasbara, the art of propaganda, Israeli ministers blame the victims, claiming that Hamas leaders – elected by Palestinians in Gaza in 2006 – use civilian citizens as human shields. The IDF publicises unauthenticated images of tunnels and weapons under schools and hospitals as justification for its bombing of places that can still shelter displaced Palestinians. Hundreds of journalists who challenge the IDF’s reports are targeted, together with their families. So are similar numbers of staff working for UNWRA and for non-governmental aid organisations.

Prime Minister Netanyahu boasts that there is ‘nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach’. The ultra-right members of his ministry – particularly Smotrich and Ben-Gvir – repeat their intention to rid Gaza of Palestinians, and are getting on with doing the same in the West Bank and southern Lebanon. All supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, they claim, are terrorists, which makes them targets and justifies wiping them out.

Australia has not stated its support for the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court in their determinations on genocide, apartheid, and the human rights of Palestinians. Although Penny Wong supported UNGA resolutions in favour of Palestinian recognition and self-determination in September, she has since backed Australia away from majority world opinion. Instead, she has picked up Israel’s line, telling the UN ‘there can be no role for terrorists’.

In fact, there is a role for terrorists, but Wong should identify who is playing it. She should say which are perpetrating the greater terror: Hamas and Hezbollah with their targeted drones and rockets, or Israel with their bunker-busting American bombs, depleted uranium, and exploding pager phones.

The only positives our Foreign Minister offers Gaza are Australia’s humanitarian aid, delivered ‘every year since 1951’, our advocacy for resumed peace negotiations for a two-state solution (half of which Israel won’t accept), and our ‘unwavering’ support for the Palestinian people. Misleadingly, she claims Australia doesn’t supply weapons to Israel. And two years before the Hamas outbreak, on 18 October 2022, she stated that ‘Australia will always be a steadfast friend of Israel…This Government will not waver in its support of Israel and the Jewish community in Australia’.

Wong’s counterpart Anthony Blinken, whose background is Jewish, also performs this trick of unwavering support for both sides. The US, he says, will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself. So does Donald Trump. Kamala Harris promises that as president she will do the same, and says Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – assassinated by Israel – is ‘a terrorist with American blood on his hands’. None of them mentions the Palestinians’ right to self-defence, even while Blinken and President Biden call repeatedly for a ceasefire to allow aid for Gaza. Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin called on 13 October for increased supplies to reach the Palestinians in a month.

The White House has given Israel a 30-day notice that it needs to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or risk losing military aid. Given the dire lack of every form of support for human life in Gaza, allowing such a delay for Israel to comply seems inexplicable. Until you realise, as Australian commentator Caitlin Johnstone and others soon did, that it means nothing has to happen before the presidential election: Another Phony Biden PR Stunt About Humanitarian Aid In Gaza.

Cutting off the shipments of weapons for Israel is the only way to stop the genocide of Palestinians, and evidently neither the US nor its allies, to their eternal shame, intend to do so.

https://johnmenadue.com/make-aid-reach-gaza-but-not-until-children-starve-to-death-for-another-30-days-says-us/

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

For years, the Israeli authorities have restricted food, fuel and essential supplies to the Palestinians in Gaza, turning the deliveries on and off at will. This contributed to the desperate Hamas outbreak on 7 October 2023. Since the beginning of this month, Israel has stopped almost all the deliveries.

Trucks stand in long lines at border crossings; ships are not allowed into ports; and the dock built by the US military collapsed before it could be of any use. Air drops into crowded Gaza have endangered those on the ground, and made the crowds a target for IDF attacks.

Long practiced in hasbara, the art of propaganda, Israeli ministers blame the victims, claiming that Hamas leaders – elected by Palestinians in Gaza in 2006 – use civilian citizens as human shields. The IDF publicises unauthenticated images of tunnels and weapons under schools and hospitals as justification for its bombing of places that can still shelter displaced Palestinians. Hundreds of journalists who challenge the IDF’s reports are targeted, together with their families. So are similar numbers of staff working for UNWRA and for non-governmental aid organisations.

Prime Minister Netanyahu boasts that there is ‘nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach’. The ultra-right members of his ministry – particularly Smotrich and Ben-Gvir – repeat their intention to rid Gaza of Palestinians, and are getting on with doing the same in the West Bank and southern Lebanon. All supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, they claim, are terrorists, which makes them targets and justifies wiping them out.

Australia has not stated its support for the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court in their determinations on genocide, apartheid, and the human rights of Palestinians. Although Penny Wong supported UNGA resolutions in favour of Palestinian recognition and self-determination in September, she has since backed Australia away from majority world opinion. Instead, she has picked up Israel’s line, telling the UN ‘there can be no role for terrorists’.

In fact, there is a role for terrorists, but Wong should identify who is playing it. She should say which are perpetrating the greater terror: Hamas and Hezbollah with their targeted drones and rockets, or Israel with their bunker-busting American bombs, depleted uranium, and exploding pager phones.

The only positives our Foreign Minister offers Gaza are Australia’s humanitarian aid, delivered ‘every year since 1951’, our advocacy for resumed peace negotiations for a two-state solution (half of which Israel won’t accept), and our ‘unwavering’ support for the Palestinian people. Misleadingly, she claims Australia doesn’t supply weapons to Israel. And two years before the Hamas outbreak, on 18 October 2022, she stated that ‘Australia will always be a steadfast friend of Israel…This Government will not waver in its support of Israel and the Jewish community in Australia’.

Wong’s counterpart Anthony Blinken, whose background is Jewish, also performs this trick of unwavering support for both sides. The US, he says, will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself. So does Donald Trump. Kamala Harris promises that as president she will do the same, and says Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – assassinated by Israel – is ‘a terrorist with American blood on his hands’. None of them mentions the Palestinians’ right to self-defence, even while Blinken and President Biden call repeatedly for a ceasefire to allow aid for Gaza. Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin called on 13 October for increased supplies to reach the Palestinians in a month.

The White House has given Israel a 30-day notice that it needs to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or risk losing military aid. Given the dire lack of every form of support for human life in Gaza, allowing such a delay for Israel to comply seems inexplicable. Until you realise, as Australian commentator Caitlin Johnstone and others soon did, that it means nothing has to happen before the presidential election: Another Phony Biden PR Stunt About Humanitarian Aid In Gaza.

Cutting off the shipments of weapons for Israel is the only way to stop the genocide of Palestinians, and evidently neither the US nor its allies, to their eternal shame, intend to do so.

https://johnmenadue.com/make-aid-reach-gaza-but-not-until-children-starve-to-death-for-another-30-days-says-us/

READ FROM TOP

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

SEE ALSO: THE REAL GOAL....