Palestinian reports: Two dead, several wounded by airdropped aid packages in Gaza City Palestinian media reported that two people were killed and several were wounded by the humanitarian aid packages that were dropped into northwest Gaza City. Videos of shipments whose parachutes did not open were distributed on social networks.
Pro-Palestinian protester attacks portrait of key figure in Israel’s foundation By Alex Barton March 9, 2024 A portrait of Lord Balfour, the former British prime minister, at the University of Cambridge has been damaged by a pro-Palestinian protester. In video posted on social media by Palestine Action, a member of the group is seen spray-painting and slashing the portrait at Trinity College. A woman can be seen defacing the work with red paint before slicing the canvas with a sharp object. British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour poses for camera in 1930. Credit: AP Balfour was one of the chief supporters of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, cemented by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which gave British backing to the movement. The Instagram video was accompanied by a caption that read: “Palestine Action spray and slash a historic painting of ‘Lord’ Balfour in Trinity College, University of Cambridge. “Written in 1917, Balfour’s declaration began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by promising the land away – which the British never had the right to do. “The British paved the way for the Nakba and trained the Zionist militia to ethnically cleansed over 750,000 Palestinians, destroy over 500 villages and massacre many families. The Nakba never stopped, and the genocide today is rooted and supported by British complicity. A Trinity College spokesman said: “Trinity College regrets the damage caused to a portrait of Arthur James Balfour during public opening hours. The police have been informed. Support is available for any member of the College community affected.” A spokesman for Cambridge Police said: “This afternoon we received an online report of criminal damage today to a painting at Trinity College, Cambridge. “Officers are attending the scene to secure evidence and progress the investigation. No arrests have been made at this stage.” Palestine Action were contacted for comment. Telegraph, London
So just more pro-Hamas supporters damaging stuff again. Someone should remind them that Hamas is holding up an internationally brokered ceasefire, not Israel.
......President Joe Biden said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the two of them were headed for a "come to Jesus" meeting over the issue of getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, according to a video clip posted on Friday. .................................. Interpretation: US President Joe Biden was overheard saying after his State of the Union speech on Thursday that he'd tell Netanyahu they would have a "come to more delusions, imaginations and bullshit" meeting.
UNRWA report says Israel coerced some agency employees to falsely admit Hamas links The comments follow reporting by the New York Times on an internal investigation compiled by UNRWA staff documenting the state of returning detainees. 09 March https://www.newarab.com/news/unrwa-israel-coerced-agency-employees-claim-hamas-links The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said some employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the October 7 attacks. The assertions are contained in a report by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said to be reviewed by news agency Reuters and dated February 2024 which detailed allegations of mistreatment in Israeli detention made by unidentified Palestinians, including several working for UNRWA. UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma said the agency planned to hand the information in the 11-page, unpublished report to agencies inside and outside the UN specialised in documenting potential human rights abuses. "When the war comes to an end there needs to be a series of inquiries to look into all violations of human rights," she said. The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members. "Agency staff members have been subject to threats and coercion by the Israeli authorities while in detention, and pressured to make false statements against the Agency, including that the Agency has affiliations with Hamas and that UNRWA staff members took part in the 7 October 2023 atrocities,” the report says. In addition to the alleged abuse endured by UNRWA staff members, Palestinian detainees more broadly described allegations of abuse, including beatings, humiliation, threats, dog attacks, sexual violence, and deaths of detainees denied medical treatment, the UNRWA report said. Operations in crisis UNRWA, which provides aid and essential services to Palestinian refugees, is at the centre of a crisis over Israeli allegations made in January that 12 of its 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The Israeli accusations led 16 countries including the United States to pause $450 million in UNRWA funding, throwing its operations into crisis. UNRWA fired some staff members, saying it acted in order to protect the agency's ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, and an independent internal UN investigation was launched. Norway, which has continued to finance the agency, said on March 6 that many countries that paused their funding are likely having second thoughts and payments could resume soon. There has yet been confirmation on the accounts of coercion of UNRWA staff and mistreatment of detainees, although the allegations of ill-treatment accord with descriptions by Palestinians freed from detention in December, February and March have been previously reported. An Israeli military spokesperson didn't specifically respond to allegations of UNRWA staff being coerced, but told news agency Reuters that the Israeli forces act in accordance with Israeli and international law to protect the rights of the detainees. Concrete complaints of inappropriate behaviour are forwarded to the relevant authorities for review, and an investigation is conducted for each death of a detainee by the military police, the spokesperson said, adding Israel denies general and unsubstantiated claims about sexual abuse of detainees. The spokesperson said freed detainees are subject to Hamas' control and can be forced to denounce Israel or risk "harm". Responding to that assertion about the detainees' credibility, Touma said the report was based on "first-hand testimonies that people told us. In some cases there were clearly some physical impact on people's bodies. And also psychological impact. So this is what's also been documented." UNRWA provides education, health and relief services to about 5.7 million registered Palestinian refugees around the Middle East. The US has been by far the biggest donor to its $1.4 billion annual budget. The Israeli army levelled new accusations at UNRWA on March 4, saying it employed over 450 "military operatives" from Hamas and other armed groups, and that Israel has shared this intelligence with the United Nations. Interrogation Later that day, the head of UNRWA warned of "a deliberate and concerted campaign" aimed at ending the agency's work, citing comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and destruction of the agency's infrastructure in Gaza. Asked about the latest Israeli accusations, Touma said UNRWA encouraged any entity with information on the allegations against UNRWA staff to share it with the investigation, which is being conducted by a UN oversight body. Touma told Reuters the document was based on interviews the agency had conducted with dozens of Palestinians freed from Israeli detention to whom UNRWA provided assistance. She said she could not provide a more detailed figure and did not know how many of the detainees made the allegations about abuse or being coerced into saying UNRWA has Hamas links. The report focuses on detainees who were taken out of Gaza for extended periods of interrogation before being returned to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing from December to February. Israel seeks UNRWA's closure The report said UNRWA had documented the release of 1,002 detainees at Kerem Shalom aged from six to 82 years-old as of February 19. The October 7 assault killed 1,200 people in Israel and resulted in another 253 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli offensive, according to health authorities in Gaza. UNRWA has condemned the October 7 attacks, saying the Israeli allegations against the agency - if true - are a betrayal of UN values and of the people UNRWA serves. The UN investigators said on February 29 they expected to receive materials soon from Israel relating to its accusations that UNRWA staffers are members of Hamas. Israel says UNRWA should be shut down. The copy of the report did not contain any photographs or identify any of the detainees by name, according to Reuters.
"Two-thirds of Jewish Israelis support their view opposing the transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza". Most demanding that all the hostages be released before a "single loaf of bread" is sent across the border. As previously noted over 80% of Jewish Israelis are demanding the war in Gaza not end until Hamas is completely wiped out. The attempted blockade of aid convoys at border crossings by the families and friends of hostages known as “Tsav 9” has slowed down aid. In recent days, Israel has increased the number of border crossing guards to prevent the protests from stopping the aid convoys -- with some success. At the edge of Gaza, Israelis try to stop aid trucks https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/middleeast/gaza-israelis-aid-trucks-protests/index.html (Article has photos and videos)
It's time to fully push back against the absurd fabrications being peddled by the pro-Hamas crowd including the progressive Squad dimwits. There is something mentally wrong with people who want terrorists to win -- noting that facts don't matter in the Pallywood world of these idiots. Israel is winning against Hamas — but the bad guys are succeeding in courts of public opinion https://nypost.com/2024/03/09/opini...gainst-hamas-but-the-bad-guys-are-closing-in/ The calls this week for the arrest of Israeli President Isaac Herzog on charges of “genocide” suggest that the bad guys are beginning to win in the war between Israel and Hamas. Not in Gaza, mind you, where Israeli forces continue to obliterate Hamas’ armed infrastructure in response to its massacre on Oct. 7. But in legal chambers and courts of public opinion across the globe. You see the bad guys everywhere — hiding, of course, in Gaza, burrowed in their terror tunnels surrounded by the Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages whose lives they regard with such indifference and disdain. But the bad guys aren’t just limited to the Levant. They’re right here in the US, sowing the sentiments that would not merely see Israeli officials unjustly detained in Europe — where denying Jews liberty is nothing new — but laying the groundwork for similar anti-Zionist efforts across the globe. We may not be there yet, but we’re getting close. What with terror-loving terrors like Rep. Rashida Tlaib and her mutinous Michigan primary charade last week — where she inveighed upon her constituents to vote against their president and party and their own best interests and cast their ballots as “uncommitted” to protest White House support for Israel. Never mind that Biden’s November rival issued that odious “Muslim ban” just days after his inauguration in 2017. Who cares that it was Trump who relocated the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv barely a year later — diminishing hopes of the city as an eventual Palestinian capital. Forget crime or immigration or inflation — a cease-fire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza are the only issues that should really matter to Michigan Democrats right now. Then there’s Gaza-washing journalists like CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and Karen Attiah of The Washington Post — the former this week glorifying the multi-murderer Marwan Barghouthi as the “Palestinian Mandela,” the latter cravenly (and lazily) invoking race and gender in her witless critique of Kamala Harris’ weekend call for a Gaza cease-fire. True, Mandela did condone selective use of armed struggle to end the Apartheid regime half a century ago. But Amanpour’s comparison to bad guy Barghouti — the architect of two bloody Intifadahs that killed dozens — is an affront to the mostly nonviolent campaign that ended white rule and brought Mandela to power in 1994. Of course who can forget about Harris herself, who’s repeatedly broken rank with her boss over Gaza, first calling for Biden to “show more sensitivity to Palestinians” back in December before using the weighty pulpit of Selma, Ala., to demand that cease-fire last week. An end to Israeli bombing — good stuff for the Hamas crowd, right? Not according to columnist Attiah, who blasted the Veep for “what she did not say” — namely questioning the transfer of the arms Israel needs to end the Hamas threat and secure its citizenry like any sovereign nation. Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez was also on the receiving end of this dystopian campaign of didn’t-speak when she found herself chased, surreally, through a Brooklyn movie theater Monday by pro-Palestinian activists haranguing her for failing to call Israel’s Gaza effort a “genocide.” Baffled and bewildered, AOC — clearly shocked by the challenge to her progressive bona fides — insisted she had declared Israel’s actions genocidal before labeling the harassment against her “f–ked up.” What’s truly f–ked up here isn’t merely the recklessness of folks like Harris and AOC — Amanpour, Tlaib and Attiah — but their weaponizing of identity babble and liberation politics to help Hamas bad guys gain the upper hand. As one of the highest profile DEI hires in American history, Harris is hardly new to targeted race-play. But in linking the Gaza crisis to one of the bloodiest episodes of America’s civil rights movement, Harris — like Amanpour with Barghouthi and Mandela — attempted to legitimize Palestinian terrorists via the imprimatur of mostly peaceful freedom fighters. As a black man whose own family was violently targeted during desegregation struggles in the South seven decades ago, Harris’ ploy feels not only ahistorical, but entirely amoral. Like so many misguided Gaza-watchers out there, Amanpour and Attiah are little more than intersectional movement-moochers mining the media for a version of the war that fits their wokey nihilistic agendas. It’s bespoke warfare curated via cellphone for maximum personal satisfaction, with scant regard for critique or consequence. But the consequences are very real, such as the possibility that Biden will prevent US weapons from being used in Israel’s likely Rafah offensive, weakening its Gaza goals and threatening the remaining hostages. Or the potential for yet another South Africa-led International Court of Justice show-trial against Israel on trumped-up charges of war crimes. The most serious outcome would be the arrest of President Herzog during his planned trip to Holland this weekend. Although unlikely, detaining Herzog would open the gates to similar actions against any Israeli perceived to have participated in “genocide” — a particularly ominous prospect for a nation with an army comprised entirely of civilians. Taken to its most egregious extreme, warrants could be issued for any Israeli who entered basic training — and, as a consequence, to anyone who’s supported Israel’s war effort as third-party accomplices. Those supporters would, of course, overwhelmingly mean Jews who could see their freedom of movement compromised and safety imperiled across vast swaths of the globe. Far-fetched, perhaps, but nothing appears out of reach for the relentless global Gaza jihadis. Unlike Harris’s Alabama photo-op or Tlaib’s Michigan optics play, when it comes to Israel and Jews, the bad guys never disappear once the cameras pack up and go home. With Ramadan looming next week, Israel’s war against Hamas is entering a perilous new stage — and the bad guys are gearing up for every possible outcome. (Article has pictures and other information)