This is from Off-Guardian report Part I.

by Simon Elmer

Excerpt:

In May 2021, the Israel Defense Forces, which included 160 fighter jets, bombed the Gaza Strip with high-explosive weapons dropped on heavily populated areas for 11 days. The planes dropped their loads from high altitude, which facilitated them gaining the velocity required to penetrate the surface of the ground. A delayed fuse meant their one tonne payload of explosives detonated underground, destroying the cellars, bunkers and tunnels in which not only Hamas militants but also Gazan civilians took cover from the bombardment.

In one half-hour period, the IDF dropped 450 such bombs, the largest in their arsenal, at a rate of one every five seconds into the subsoil of Gaza, sending shockwaves through the earth.
The result was 259 Palestinians killed, including 66 children and 41 women, and 2,211 injured. In addition, 6 hospitals and 11 medical clinics were destroyed, 53 schools, a bookshop that held an estimated 100,000 books, as well as 1,042 homes and commercial units in 258 buildings, including 4 residential tower blocks.

The Israeli Government claimed these towers were being used by Hamas for military purposes. However, Human Rights Watch has challenged the truth of this claim, declaring that the air strikes ‘violated the laws of war and may amount to war crimes’. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that, as a result of these strikes, 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza were displaced.

by Israel Shamir via Unz Review

We are trying our best to figure out – why is Jewry so keen to import as many Muslims to Europe and USA as possible, and at the same time prepare the Gaza genocide? Do they do it out of sheer idealism? Out of compassion (hard to believe)? Or out of silliness? Could it be that this calculating people didn’t take into account that Muslims might react to genocide against Palestinians? Granted, Europeans and Americans did their fair share of protesting, but Jews knew they could shut down the Goyim any time they wanted simply by uttering the magic Jewish spell “Holocaust – Auschwitz”.

Yet Jews understand better than anyone that their “fellow Semites” from the Middle East have not accepted the yoke of Holocaust Guilt. Jews are more aware than anyone that Muslims still chafe over the fact that their Palestinian brothers have been kept in an “open air concentration camp” for the last 50 years. So how can we explain the apparent tactical error when the ADL and other Jewish organizations twisted the arms of European and American leaders to accept hordes of fighting age Muslims just before an Israeli incursion into Gaza? Surely no! They do not make such mistakes!

When on Friday in Dublin a Muslim émigré from Algeria stabbed an Irish family and incited an anti-Muslim pogrom, we finally got the missing piece of this puzzle. I was waiting for “the rest of the story”, and it was unveiled at a crucial point in the drama – just as Dublin demonstrated en masse against the brutal murder of Gaza children, just when the Irish parliament threatened to expel the Israel ambassador, just as reports of anti-Semitism reached new highs. Just then it seemed that the Jews were beset from all sides, and that the whole world was against them. Of course, in every good story the darkest tidings come just before the dawn.

Jews are professional victims. They are good at it. They are willing to play the bad guy, but only in stories where Jewry is eventually vindicated and expendable Jews martyred. Jewish leaders believe that revenge is best served cold. This answers the question of why they brought Muslim refugees to Europe and America in the first place. Unneeded, unwanted, unrequested (so much for democracy), at a time of growing poverty and debt, the economies bankrupt and populations largely jobless, this is the precise moment that the Jews ostentatiously dumped armies of Muslims into the West.

“I think there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism because at this point in time Europe has not yet learned how to be multicultural. And I think we are going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which must take place. Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the centre of that. It’s a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode and Jews will be resented because of our leading role. But without that leading role and without that transformation, Europe will not survive.” — Barbara Lerner Spectre, a founding director of Paideia, The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden.

Of course the fury of the hapless natives will be focused upon the Muslim immigrants. Of course the hapless Muslims will resent this. This conflict is not only natural, it is eminently predictable. And of course, wherever reality falls short of the predetermined narrative, the media can be counted on to fill in the gaps.

It’s not difficult to find a Muslim refugee of disturbed mind, to hand him a knife and push him out the door to amok attack. If he didn’t exist, then the Jews would have to create him. Muslim Golems do it with panache.

A Palestinian man, Sirhan Sirhan is doing life in a US jail for the alleged assassination of Robert Kennedy (a brother of JFK), even though RFK’s son, Robert Kennedy Jr, is convinced of his innocence. Most people understand that Sirhan was framed by an international cabal of skilled dealers in narratives. Practically no one in the world believes that Sirhan committed the murder, and yet our wiki-histories still maintain the fiction as though no “conspiracy theory” could stand in the face of an official report. For 55 years, they have held the facts in a kind of fog, admitted and yet plausibly denied. Compared with such imperial stratagems, the stabbing in Dublin is amateur night.

In the same time frame as the Dublin riots, in Netherlands, a Dutch neo-Nazi, Muslim-hater and a big lover of Israel won the elections. This was the culmination of a long-term project of international Jewry. Hand in hand with all the leaders of America and Europe, Israel had carefully played up all the historical ties between the Nazis of Europe and the US. The Internet had been buzzing with neo-Nazi activity. Threats against Jews reached all-time highs. Laws forbidding boycotts were passed. Days Of Remembrance were proclaimed. Standing ovations for Israeli leaders became normalized and then expected. The dramatic tension became unbearable as the leadership demonstrated loyalty to Israel and the people grumbled about Jewish privilege. In the midst of all this anxiety and hostility, the Jewish diaspora coordinated a wave of Muslim immigration with the Israeli war machine, creating a wave of perfectly justified anger at the Gaza genocide.

The anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim reaction was timed to bloom with the Israeli invasion of Gaza, not only in Europe and the US, but also in Russia. You probably have heard about the Jewish pogrom in Dagestan, the only pogrom in human history that occurred without a single Jew. Naturally not a single Jew was harmed, but there was a lot of the usual media noise. Jews and their friends placed hundreds of pictures allegedly depicting the brutal anti-Semites of Dagestan hunting Jews on a commercial flight. Clearly the Dagestanis were little more than pawns in a media trap, drawn to the plane by foreign reports and then ambushed by camera-wielding reporters.

It’s good to keep in mind that Jews are afraid neither of nationalists nor of Nazis. The closer the Nazi is to the top, the more he openly shows his love for Israel. Nationalists Donald Trump and Georgia Meloni adore Israel. White racists either defend Israel or they share racial theory with Jewry. Christian Zionists have integrated worship of the state into their religion. If Jews appear to battle the racists and nationalists, it’s only to keep them fresh in the news. First we must pull back the spring, so that when we release it the firing pin will send the bullet on its way. If the bullet does the damage, the Jew is blameless. Russian Jews did not hesitate to support Navalny the nationalist when his Russian Marches shook Moscow.

Jews as a rule are extreme nationalists, the rabbis struggling to keep the people divided from the Goyim and pristine in their ghettos. Hitlerites tolerated Jewish Nazis, and allowed them to have their own flag and anthem. Hungarian Zionists like Rudolf Kasztner collaborated with the Nazis to transport only the “best” Jews to Palestine.

For a long time Jews practice dialectics as the war strategy. In 19 c. they led the labour movement and the capitalist enrichment. G K Chesterton depicted a Jewish revolutionist being in cahoots with a Jewish capitalist. Now a Jewish supporter of Muslim immigration is in cahoots with Zionist who expels Muslims from their ancestral lands and with a Nazi who rabble-rousing crowds against the Muslims.

So here at last is the purpose behind the supposed tactical errors of our busy little friends. Wheels within wheels. As an oil well fire is blown out with TNT, they primed their neo-Nazi brigades and then delivered them a host of unwanted Muslims. As the authorities struggle to extinguish the fire, the people will begin to notice that the case of Gaza is just like the case of Dublin and Amsterdam. At that moment, the moral high ground will be snuffed out and the people will be left in that fog of war with which we are so familiar. The indignation of people will die out, Palestine will be mechanically cleansed of its native folk, and the Gaza beachfront properties may be openly claimed by racially pure, nationalist Jews. Even most progressive Jews like Benny Morris regretted that not all Palestinians were expelled in 1948.

Written with assistance of Mr Paul Bennett

The first moments after another Israeli strike. Dozens of wounded and killed were reported.

The Americans are sending to Israel their latest missiles to be used in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Blast Overpressure Injuries – and why children are disproportionately affected by them.

EVEN IF THE ZIONISTS WANT TO KILL ME, WON’T LEAVE MY HOME – declares defiant Palestinian elderly man (00:34 above video), as he sits tired on rubble of what was home, shaken by the horror he witnessed (00:21). 

God willing, Palestine will be free and we will resist until last drop of human blood – he stresses, despite losing two sons and daughter (00:12).

by Norman Finkelstein via Norman Finkelstein.substack

Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip has resumed in full force. The intensity of its bombing and shelling is as intense as before the truce, perhaps even more so. Israel will however find it difficult to continue this campaign for another 50 days. Even if does, the results are unlikely to be significantly different than what we saw during the first 50 days. In other words, eliminating Palestinian military capabilities in the Gaza Strip, let alone eradicating the presence of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others from the territory, is an unattainable objective.

But Israel is extremely unlikely to be permitted another 50 days of war by its US and European sponsors. Their foremost concern, increasingly likely with each passing day, is uncontrolled regional escalation and the ramifications this could have on their regional and global interests, and on their economies as well. Their statements of concern about the staggering levels of death and destruction in the Gaza Strip, and about the humanitarian emergency which is predicted to result in epidemics, perhaps even famine, in the Gaza Strip, are for public consumption. After all, it’s a little disingenuous for these governments to wail about a reality they encouraged, justified, defended, enabled, and in many cases directly participated in creating. It’s equally the case that these governments, and the US in particular, could transform this reality with a single phone call. If they so choose. Rather, these statements of concern are designed to deflect public and political pressure upon such governments for a change of policy, provide cover for their complicity in Israel’s war, and present a more acceptable rationale for eventually calling a halt to Israel’s offensive.

According to press reports, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu informed US President Biden that Israel would need at least an additional two months to achieve its objectives. The US response was reportedly that Israel has only two weeks. Sounds plausible in view of the above factors. The message to the Israeli government would have been along the lines of “We gave you unlimited support, everything you need, and you’ve already had 50 days to achieve it. Regrettably, you weren’t up to the job. We now need to find an alternative to your military mediocrity that is somewhat more effective.”

Even though I have argued that Israel should be analyzed as not only a radical but also an irrational state, Washington when it so chooses retains the power and leverage to set policy for its client regime. That’s certainly the case with respect to major issues that directly affect US interests, and where the US controls the arms supply and other crucial factors like a vote at the UN Security Council.

I suspect that within the next week or so we will see a new truce agreement. It is likely to be more extended than the previous one, and see complex negotiations about further exchanges of captives. These could break down and result in a new round of warfare, but that too is likely to be short and sharp.

Ultimately, and once again assuming Israel continues to fail militarily (the most likely and plausible but not a certain scenario), the Palestinians are not going to release their most valuable prisoners, the senior Israeli military officers, without obtaining the release of senior Palestinian leaders in Israeli prisons. They will also seek a guaranteed end to Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of Israeli forces to their 7 October positions. This will be a very bitter pill for Israel to swallow, but the results of military failure tend to be bitter, and the US and Europe will help Netanyahu (or whoever replaces him) take his medicine.

This leaves a fundamental question in which Western and Israeli interests remain closely aligned, unresolved: removing Hamas as a governing authority from the Gaza Strip. The most logical resolution would be for Palestinians to choose their own leaders, but this is a non-starter for both the only democracy in the Middle East and the world’s greatest democracy. In my view a Palestinian coalition makes the most sense, not only because no single Palestinian movement has the requisite qualifications to single-handedly administer the Palestinians in these territories, but also because such a construction would assist in the revitalization of the Palestinian national movement. For example as a prelude to the integration of Hamas and PIJ into the PLO, and the formation of a new national leadership committed to pursuing Palestinian rights rather than US and Israeli approval.

At this stage in their struggle Palestinians require pluralism more than elections. Although the US and Europe are in principle open to the idea of a Palestinian government chosen and appointed by Washington and Brussels administering both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel has invested decades in promoting Palestinian fragmentation, will be bitterly opposed to re-unification of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and on this issue is unlikely to be challenged by its Western sponsors. As importantly, Israel will prevent any coalition government that includes Hamas from taking office and discharging its mandate in the West Bank. Which probably means Hamas won’t accept it in the Gaza Strip.

But Israel and its Western partners are determined to remove Hamas as a governing authority from the Gaza Strip. On this point, my dear friend Ibrahim and I both almost died laughing this evening discussing the latest idea emerging from the Washington echo chamber. It’s genuinely that ridiculous, and that detached from reality. Basically, there is serious discussion of applying the same formula to Hamas in Gaza that was used to extract the PLO from Beirut in 1982.

In 1982, the US engineered an agreement whereby the PLO, both leadership and cadres, boarded trucks and ships in the port of Beirut, and withdrew from Lebanon, primarily to Algeria, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. That agreement was possible for several reasons: the PLO could justify leaving Lebanon, because Lebanon was a foreign country whose capital city was being destroyed by Israel; the decision to withdraw was endorsed (and in some cases encouraged) by the PLO’s Lebanese allies; the PLO had formal Arab legitimacy (it is a full member of the Arab League), and also international legitimacy (it has permanent observer status at the UN); and the US provided security guarantees for the unarmed Palestinian civilians the PLO would leave behind. The following month Israel perpetrated the Sabra-Shatila massacres via its fascist Lebanese proxies. The US had knowledge of these massacres in real time, did nothing to stop them, and the Palestinians learned an unforgettable lesson in the value – that is, worthlessness – of US commitments.

In 2023 the idea would be that Hamas, or at least its leadership, senior echelons, and fighters, would depart their Palestinian homeland for a life of exile. In other words, voluntarily commit political and organizational suicide, and relinquish their main source of leverage, so that Israel and the US can claim the victory Israel’s military was unable to achieve on the ground. And once abroad, explain to their constituents and Palestinians more generally, that they carefully considered the matter and concluded that saving their own skins justifies the extraordinary price Palestinians have had to pay to make this possible. Only in Washington…

Finding governments prepared to receive several thousand PLO fighters in 1982 was a real challenge. Finding ones willing to receive Hamas in 2023, particularly its military members, will be virtually impossible. Recalling the US guarantees of 1982, it also seems reasonable to assume that if Hamas leaders and cadres board a ship in what’s left of Gaza harbor it will be sunk by an Israeli torpedo before it leaves port, and if they leave by land will be picked off by Israel’s death squads soon after. Unless Karim Khan’s ICC grabs them first in a further act of fealty to non-members US and Israel.

If this war proceeds as anticipated, the US and Israel will need to reconcile themselves to Israel’s failure to achieve a decisive outcome. Israel will probably opt for a period of more limited strikes, incursions, assassinations, and similar operations, which Hamas is unlikely to leave without response. But wars of attrition are not Israel’s strength, and at a certain point a more durable cessation of hostilities will have to be reached.

That could give the West time to consider the possibility of accepting the principle of Palestinians choosing their own representatives. And consider alternatives to active support or passive acquiescence to Israel’s agenda with respect to Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli relations. It won’t happen under Biden, who apart from sprinkling a few dollars over UNRWA has maintained each of Trump’s Palestine policies. This includes the closure of the representative office in Washington of the PLO/PA, which Blinken is now promoting as Gaza’s new governing authority.

Benjamin Netanyahu has had an “odd symbiosis” with the Palestinian militant group Hamas that has ruled Gaza for the decades he has been Israel’s prime minister, the Washington Post (WaPo) reported on Sunday, citing a host of experts on Israel. The politician reportedly has found Hamas useful for stalling the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and for disrupting the establishment of the Palestinian state, the paper claimed.

Netanyahu, who headed the Israeli government uninterrupted between 2009 and 2020 and then returned to power in December 2022, has repeatedly vowed to destroy Hamas throughout his tenures but instead pursued policies that helped the group keep its grip over the enclave, the US media outlet reported.

The prime minister’s cabinets agreed to money transfers from Qatar used to pay public salaries in Gaza, improve the local infrastructure, and supposedly even fund Hamas operations, it said, adding that, under Netanyahu, Israel also approved periodic prisoner releases that allegedly also benefited the group.

“In the last ten years, Netanyahu worked to block any attempt at demolishing Hamas in Gaza,” Israeli historian Adam Raz, who studied relations between the prime minister and the militant group, told WaPo, calling it a “strange alliance”that might have ended with the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the follow-up Israeli military operation in Gaza.

The goal of Netanyahu’s policy was allegedly to divide the Palestinians, leaving Hamas to rule Gaza and letting its rivals from the Palestinian Authority control the West Bank. The conflict between the two groups made a negotiated two-state solution impossible, WaPo claimed, adding that it also allowed the prime minister to just discard the Palestinian issue altogether.

“With no unified leadership, [Netanyahu] was able to say he couldn’t move forward with peace negotiations,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli pollster and political analyst. “It allowed him to say, ‘There is no one to talk to.’” Instead, he focused on Israel’s standoff with Iran and economic development, the Post added, citing Netanyahu biographer Anshel Pfeffer.

“Netanyahu always felt that the Palestinian conflict was a distraction being used as a wedge issue in Israel,” Pfeffer told the paper. According to the Post, the prime minister in particular sought to prevent any reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority amid an apparent rapprochement in 2018. It did not provide any details on the issue, though.

The prime minister’s office refused to provide any comments to the US newspaper but one Israeli official told it, on condition of anonymity, that Netanyahu “hit Hamas harder than any prime minister in history.” Although the prime minister had not destroyed the group earlier, it was something his “war cabinet” was doing after October 7, the official added.

Israel waged three large-scale military operations in Gaza under Netanyahu’s leadership, which were in 2012, 2014 and 2021. All of them eventually ended in negotiated ceasefires that left the group in control of the enclave.

Via RT

by Richard Medhurst via: Al Mayadeen

Either the Resistance Axis and the Global South decolonize the Middle East, or “Israel” and the US will continue occupying the region, choking off the New Silk Road, plundering Syria’s oil, and keeping Russian, Iranian, and Arab gas cut off from the world market.

Illustrated by Arwa Makki; Al Mayadeen, English
Two weeks before Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, Netanyahu went to the United Nations General Assembly, held up a map, and declared his plan for a “New Middle East”: an economic corridor, stretching from India to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, “Israel”, and finally to Europe.

This is one of the main geopolitical reasons behind “Israel’s” massacre in Gaza.

Link to graphic: https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-hidden-reasons-behind-the-war-on-gaza–part-i
The United States, “Israel’s” main backer, is desperate for a way to try and contain BRICS, and more specifically, to counter China’s New Silk Road. Building a rival corridor would hit two birds with one stone: contain China, Iran, and Syria and help “Israel” and the United States maintain economic and political dominance against a multipolar world.

It was a rough year for Washington and “Tel Aviv” as sanctions against Russia failed miserably. Saudi Arabia made peace with Iran and Syria and held talks with Yemen – countries the US and “Israel” have tried isolating for years. After seeing the US steal $300bln from Russia’s Central Bank, not only did the Dollar’s relevance begin to recede, but dozens of countries applied to join BRICS, the group of emerging economic giants, with its membership doubling from 5 to 11 members, to include Iran.

The ancient Silk Road was the most important trade route in human history, stretching all the way from China to Syria and into the Mediterranean Sea. China and 150 other countries understand its importance and seek to revive it. It is the future of world economics and politics.

In the weeks leading up to Netanyahu’s announcement, Iran and Iraq signed a railway deal, and President al-Assad of Syria visited China to sign a strategic partnership with the world’s largest economy. This is pivotal. Not only has the West failed in isolating these countries, but now the New Silk Road has expanded its rail infrastructure and obtained access to the Mediterranean Sea through Syria’s Latakia port; crucial goals for land and maritime trade.

As important as these developments are, they are just one aspect. You then have the gas.

Cutting off Russian Gas to Europe

When the United States instigated the Maidan Coup in Ukraine in 2014, it wasn’t just about NATO expansion and encirclement of Russia. It was also about surrounding, controlling, and cutting off Russian gas to Europe. Russia is the country with the largest proven reserves of natural gas. Control Ukraine and you control the pipelines that supply Russian gas to Europe.

There was, however, another major route for Russian gas into Europe, but from the north: the Nordstream pipelines.

For decades, US politicians from every administration have said repeatedly how much they dislike the Nord Stream pipelines. In 2022, before the war in Ukraine exploded, Biden delivered an ominous threat that he would “bring an end” to Nordstream – despite the pipeline being a Russian-German project, and the German Chancellor Scholz standing next to him, silently.

Then, all of a sudden, Nord Stream 1 and 2 were conveniently blown up in 2022. This remains, without question, one of the largest, most egregious terrorist attacks on European infrastructure in modern history. Only three countries in the world can pull off such an operation: Russia, Britain, and the United States– and it certainly wasn’t Russia, who owns the pipeline and had already turned the gas off anyway.

This attack, in addition to sanctions banning Russian oil and gas, made sure that no more Russian gas could flow to Europe. And just like that, the United States achieved a longstanding foreign policy objective: keep the Russians out and the Germans down.

Next objective: Iranian gas and oil

The only other country with enormous gas reserves – the second largest in the world – is Iran. The Iran Nuclear Deal was signed in 2015. Iran complied in every way, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) couldn’t be happier. However, the United States went back on its word, reimposed sanctions on Iran, and violated the agreement. This effectively barred Iran from selling oil and gas to Europe and others.

Now with both Russia and Iran out of the picture, “Israel” suddenly proposes itself as a solution to the European Union’s gas shortages, signing a gas deal with the bloc in June 2022.

Ursula Von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, June 14, 2022: “To break free of our dependency of Russian fossil fuels, for instance, we are now exploring ways to step up our energy cooperation with Israel […] a gas and clean hydrogen pipeline in the eastern Mediterranean.”

The Leviathan gas field

A geological survey conducted in 2010 found a monstrous gas field in the Middle East: the Leviathan, located in the Levantine Basin, off the coast of Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria.

Link to the graphic: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Levant_Basin.png

Ultimately, Syria would not allow Western corporations to extract its gas, nor would Qatar’s ambitious oil pipeline, meant to pass through Syria, ever materialize. Coincidentally, soon after, war broke out in Syria, with Qatar and “Israel” being two of many parties funding terrorist groups to try and overthrow Damascus.

Today, the United States, who also worked to inflict harm on Syria, controls all of Syria’s oil fields, and “Israel” has bombed Syria’s most vital port, Latakia, several times. All this was done to cut off oil revenue and cripple maritime activity, including gas exploration.

‘Israel’ putting rival ports out of action

Another major port on the Levantine coast is the Beirut Port, which mysteriously exploded in 2020. Then “Israel” showed up in 2022 with an enormous vessel to try and extract gas from the Karish gas fields in Lebanon, reigniting a dispute about maritime borders with Lebanon. Only after Hezbollah threatened to fire on the ships did “Israel” back off and get the US to settle the issue on its behalf.

Gaza, a coastal enclave, also with its own unexplored gas fields, has been under an Israeli and Egyptian naval blockade since 2007. The siege and numerous wars “Israel” launched against Gaza make sure that Palestinians can’t even fish properly, let alone extract gas.

So now, with all the Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian ports out of action, the only working port left on the coast is the port in Haifa, controlled by “Israel”.

The hidden reasons behind the war on Gaza

This makes “Israel” the only one able to extract gas and implement an economic corridor. In other words, “Israel” and the United States killed off all the competition (Iran, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) stole their goods, and cornered the market.

Lo and behold, while “Israel” was bombing Gaza, on October 29, it handed out 12 licenses to companies to begin gas extraction in the Leviathan basin in the Mediterranean Sea.

No stability in the region without solving the Palestinian question

As winter approaches, “Israel” desperately needs to deliver on its promise of gas to Europe. And the United States is growing desperate as BRICS and China’s Belt and Road Initiative grow ever more popular. However, there can be no stability in the region without solving the Palestinian question.

When Netanyahu announced his plan at the UN, the Israelis thought it was a done deal by getting Saudi Arabia to normalize ties, and thereby, extinguishing the Palestinian issue once and for all. But it isn’t over, and the Palestinians aren’t going anywhere.

This explains why “Israel” is slaughtering Palestinians in such a hysterical, maniacal fashion. “Israel” occupied and attacked Gaza many times before, but the current level of violence surpasses anything we’ve ever seen. “Israel” is trying to kill as many Palestinians as it can in Gaza and scare the rest into abandoning their homes and going to Egypt. A recently leaked document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence confirms that “Israel” is trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza by pushing Palestinians into the Sinai Desert. The United States even offered to wipe Egypt’s national debt, in exchange for allowing Palestinians to live in make-shift tents in the desert; an insulting and outrageous proposal.

Leaked document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence says that “Israel” is trying to push Gazans into Sinai

“Israel” seeking to push Palestinians in Gaza into the Sinai Desert and those in the West Bank into Jordan

This is genocide and ethnic cleansing without question. Hundreds of lawyers are currently trying to prosecute “Israel” at the International Criminal Court for what it is doing in Gaza – a sight reminiscent of the Nakba in 1948.

Yes, Zionism is anti-Semitic and racist, but there are also huge economic and geopolitical implications behind “Israel” and the United States’ genocide in Gaza.

When Hamas and the collective Resistance found out about Netanyahu’s plan for a “New Middle East” and Saudi Arabia’s wishes to normalize ties with “Israel”, they understood that this would destroy any hope of a Palestinian state. It forced their hand and they understood they must act immediately, or Palestine would be lost forever.

For the Palestinians, it is a matter of life and death. To be or not to be.

Either the Resistance Axis and the Global South decolonize the Middle East, or “Israel” and the United States will continue occupying the region, choking off the New Silk Road, plundering Syria’s oil, and keeping Russian, Iranian, and Arab gas cut off from the world market.

THE PALESTINIAN SPIRIT encapsulated in high morale of elderly Gazan man in above video, 4th time his home is leveled by IDF but he’s still full of determination to rebuild it as he sees nothing but victory against the “mighty” occupier.

I WILL BUILD A TENT AND LIVE HERE – Fiery-spirited Palestinian lady in above video stands on top of pile of rubble that was once home – flattened for the 3rd time by IDF in Gaza’s Khan Yunis – refusing to be displaced once more, she returns iron-willed to stay in tent until house is up again.

LIFE OVERCOMES DEATH in the video below from a flattened Gaza Strip on morning of truce, mothers entertain happy babies on top of massive piles of rubble, sound of their sweet laughter echoes through and spreads joy after weeks of devastation.  

 

by Scott Ritter via Sputnik

The recently announced ceasefire is a blessing for Palestinians and Israelis alike—a chance for prisoners to be exchanged, humanitarian aid to be distributed to those in need, and for emotions on both sides of the conflict to cool down.

While the ceasefire, negotiated between Israel and Hamas by Qatar, was mutually agreed between the two parties, let no one be fooled into thinking this was anything less than a victory for Hamas. Israel had taken a very aggressive position that, given its stated objective of destroying Hamas as an organization, it would not agree to a ceasefire under any conditions.

Hamas, on the other hand, had made one of its primary objectives in initiating the current round of fighting with Israel the release of Palestinian prisoners, and in particular women and children, held by Israel. Seen in this light, the ceasefire represents an important victory for Hamas, and a humiliating defeat for Israel.

One of the reasons Israel eschewed a ceasefire was that it was confident that the offensive operation it had launched into northern Gaza was going to neutralize Hamas as a military threat, and that any ceasefire, regardless of the humanitarian justification, would only buy time for a defeated Hamas enemy to rest, refit, and regroup. That Israel signed on to a ceasefire is the surest sign yet that all is not well with the Israeli offensive against Hamas.

This outcome should not have come as a surprise to anyone. When Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, it initiated a plan years in the making. The meticulous attention to detail that was evident in the Hamas operation underscored the reality that Hamas had been studying the Israeli intelligence and military forces arrayed against it, uncovering weaknesses that were subsequently exploited. The Hamas action represented more than sound tactical and operational planning and execution—it was a masterpiece in strategic conceptualization as well.

One of the main reasons behind the Israeli defeat on October 7 was the fact that the Israeli government was convinced that Hamas would never attack, regardless of what the intelligence analysts charged with watching Hamas activity in Gaza were saying. This failure of imagination came about by Hamas having identified the political goals and objectives of Israel (the nullification of Hamas as a resistance organization by undertaking a policy built on “buying” Hamas through an expanded program of work permits issued by Israel for Palestinians living in Gaza.) By playing along with the work permit program, Hamas lulled the Israeli leadership into complacency, allowing Hamas’ preparations for their attack to be carried out in plain view.

The October 7 attack by Hamas was not a stand-alone operation, but rather part of a strategic plan possessing three main objectives—to put the issue of a Palestinian state back on the front burner of international discourse, to free the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and to compel Israel to cease and desist when it came to its desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest place. The October 7 attack, on its own, could not achieve these outcomes. Rather, the October 7 attack was designed to trigger an Israeli response which would create the conditions necessary for Hamas’ objectives to reach fruition.

The October 7 attack was designed to humiliate Israel to the point of irrationality, to ensure that any Israeli response would be governed by the emotional need for revenge, as opposed to a rational response designed to nullify the Hamas objectives. Here, Hamas was guided by the established Israeli doctrine of collective punishment (known as the Dahiya Doctrine, named after the West Beirut suburb that was heavily bombed by Israel in 2006 as a way of punishing the Lebanese people for Israel’s failure to defeat Hezbollah in combat.) By inflicting a humiliating defeat on Israel which shattered both the myth of Israeli invincibility (regarding the Israel Defense Forces) and infallibility (regarding Israeli intelligence), and by taking hundreds of Israelis hostage before withdrawing to its underground lair beneath Gaza, Hamas baited a trap for Israel which the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predictably rushed into.

Hamas has prepared a network of tunnels underneath the Gaza Stripthat, in total, stretch for over 500 kilometers. Nicknamed the “Gaza Metro,” these tunnels consist of interconnected deep underground bunkers used for command and control, logistical support, medical treatment, and billeting, along with other tunnel networks dedicated for both defensive and offensive operations. The tunnels are buried deep enough to avoid destruction by most bombs in Israel’s possession and have been provisioned to withstand a siege of up to three months (90 days) in duration.

Hamas knows that it cannot engage Israel in a classic force-on-force encounter. Instead, the goal was to lure Israeli forces into Gaza, and then subject these forces to an endless series of hit-and-run attacks by small teams of Hamas fighters who would emerge from their underground lairs, attack a vulnerable Israeli force, and then disappear back underground. In short, to subject the Israeli military to what is the equivalent of a death by a thousand cuts.

And it worked. While Israeli forces have been able to penetrate into the less urbanized areas of the northern Gaza strip, taking advantage of the mobility and firepower of its armored troops, the progress is illusory, as Hamas forces harry the Israelis continuously, using deadly tandem-warhead rockets to disable or destroy Israeli vehicles, killing scores of Israeli soldiers and wounding hundreds more. While Israel has been reticent in releasing the figures of armored vehicles lost in this fashion, Hamas claims the number is in the hundreds. Hamas’ claims are bolstered by the fact that Israel has halted the sale of older Merkava 3 tanks, and instead has organized their inventory of these vehicles into new reserve armor battalions to make up for the heavy losses being sustained in both Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah forces are engaged in a deadly war of attrition with Israel in operations designed to support Hamas in Gaza.

But the main reason for Israel’s defeat to date is Israel itself. Having taken the bait, and fallen into the Hamas trap, Israel went on to execute its Dahiya Doctrine against the Palestinian population of Gaza, carrying out indiscriminate attacks against civilian objects in blatant disregard for the law of war. An estimated 13,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by these attacks, including more than 5,000 children. Many thousands more victims remain buried under the rubble of their destroyed housing.

While Israel may have been able to garner the support of the international community in the aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas, its gross overreaction has instead turned world public opinion against it—something Hamas was counting on. Today, Israel is increasingly isolated, losing support not only in the so-called Global South, but also in traditional strongholds of pro-Israeli sentiment in the US, UK, and Europe. This isolation, combined with the kind of political pressure Israel is unaccustomed to receiving, helped contribute to the Netanyahu government’s acquiescence regarding the ceasefire and subsequent prisoner exchange.

Whether the ceasefire will hold or not remains to be seen. So, too, the question of turning the ceasefire into a lasting cessation of hostilities remains an open question. But one thing is certain—having declared that victory is defined by Hamas’ total defeat, the Israelis have set the stage for a Hamas victory, something Hamas achieves simply by surviving.

But Hamas is doing more than surviving — it is winning. Having fought the Israel Defense Forces to a standstill on the battlefield, Hamas has seen every one of its strategic objectives in this conflict reach fruition. The world is actively articulating the absolute necessity of a two-state solution as a prerequisite for a lasting peace in the region. Palestinians held prisoner by Israel are being exchanged for the Israelis Hamas took hostage. And the Islamic world is united in condemning Israel’s desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque.

None of these issues were on the table on October 6. That they are being addressed now is testament to the success Hamas enjoyed on October 7, and in the days and weeks that followed, as Israeli forces were defeated by a combination of Hamas’ tenacity and their own predilection for indiscriminate violence against civilians. Far from being eliminated as a military and political force, Hamas has emerged as perhaps the most relevant voice and authority when it comes to defending the interests of the Palestinian people.