Israeli far-right politicians protest arrest of soldiers suspected of abuse Ministers and members of Knesset slam detention of nine soldiers accused of abusing a Palestinian prisoner. Right-wing protesters wave Israeli flags outside Sde Teiman detention facility after Israeli Military Police arrived at the site as part of an investigation into suspected abuse of a Palestinian detainee on July 29, 2024. [Jill Gralow/Reuters] 29 Jul 2024 Dozens of Israeli protesters, including far-right members of the Knesset, have clashed with military police after at least nine soldiers suspected of abusing a Palestinian prisoner were detained for questioning from the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel. The protesters waved Israeli flags and stormed through the facility’s gate on Monday to try to prevent the soldiers’ detention as they chanted “shame”. They defended the soldiers, saying they were doing their duty. Several Israeli civilians rushed to lend support to the soldiers, according to media reports. Some unsuccessfully tried to break into the facility. One soldier was quoted as saying by the Haaretz newspaper that some members of the military directed pepper spray at the military police who came to detain the soldiers. Demonstrators also tried to breach the Beit Lid military base, where the soldiers were transported, according to local media. The Israeli military said on Monday that it was holding nine soldiers for questioning after allegations of “substantial abuse” of a detainee at the Sde Teiman facility, which was set up to detain Palestinians arrested in Gaza after Israel launched its war on the enclave on October 7. The military did not disclose additional details surrounding the alleged abuse, saying only that its top legal official had launched a probe. But Israeli media reported that a Palestinian prisoner was taken to a hospital after suffering severe injuries, adding that he could not walk. Right-wing protesters wave Israeli flags outside Sde Teiman detention facility as they show support for the soldiers accused of abusing a Palestinian prisoners. [Jill Gralow/Reuters] The detention was ordered after Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, Israel’s military advocate general, opened a military police investigation into the incident, according to The Times of Israel. The detained soldiers belong to a unit known as Force 100, which is tasked with guarding the Sde Teiman facility, according to Haaretz. Israel’s army chief condemned the protests. “Breaking into a military base and disturbing the order there is severe behaviour that is not acceptable in any way,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in a statement on Monday. “We are in the midst of a war and actions of this type endanger the security of the state. I strongly condemn the incident, and we are working to restore order at the base,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for “an immediate calming of passions as he “strongly condemned” the storming of the facility while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “We must allow the authorised parties to carry out the necessary investigations.” ‘Soldiers are not criminals’ But far-right politicians, including ministers, have rushed to defend the soldiers and asked the military to stop investigating them. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich published a video message on X telling the military advocate general to take her hands off Israel’s “heroic warriors”. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and other members of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party announced they were on their way to Sde Teiman to demand the release of the soldiers. Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein announced he will hold a hearing on Tuesday to discuss the arrests, saying: “Our soldiers are not criminals, and this contemptible pursuit of our soldiers is unacceptable to me.” Palestinians say torture against detainees is widespread inside Israeli prisons. [File: Ammar Awad/Reuters] Justice Minister Yariv Levin said he was “shocked to see harsh pictures of soldiers being arrested”, according to Haaretz. The Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence said, however, that the protesters were “essentially issuing a full-throated endorsement of unimaginably brutal abuse of Palestinians”. In a statement on X, the NGO made up of army veterans also described dire conditions in the prison for Palestinian prisoners. “Tens of dead detainees; indefinite restraints resulting in amputations; medical procedures with no anaesthesia; sleep deprivation; brutal beatings; sexual torture,” it said. Widespread abuse Palestinians and rights groups have documented widespread abuse inside Israeli prisons even before Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza nearly 10 months ago. This month, a Palestinian lawyer shared harrowing accounts of rapes and torture against detainees in prisons. Khaled Mahajna, a lawyer with the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, shared the abuse recounted by two Palestinian detainees. One of them, a journalist, described witnessing rapes of detainees from Gaza inside the Sde Teiman facility, which has been compared to Guantanamo prison. Another detainee was stripped naked, electrocuted and subjected to sexual abuse, Mahajna said. An investigation by The Associated Press news agency and reports by rights groups have exposed abysmal conditions at the Sde Teiman facility, the country’s largest detention centre. A report by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, this year said detainees were subjected to ill-treatment and abuse while in Israeli custody without specifying the facility. The Washington Post newspaper has reported about rampant violence and deprivation in Israel’s prison system after speaking to former Palestinian prisoners and lawyers and reviewing autopsy reports. At least 12 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Israel have died from abuse in Israeli jails since October 7, according to doctors from Physicians for Human Rights Israel who were quoted by the newspaper. The report also included witness accounts about the suffering of three of those 12 inmates. “One Palestinian inmate died with a ruptured spleen and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another met an excruciating end because a chronic condition went untreated. A third screamed for help for hours before dying,” the newspaper said. Widespread reports of mistreatment of detainees in Israeli prisons have added to international pressure on Israel over its conduct of the Gaza war. More than 39,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces, drawing international condemnation and calls to hold Israel accountable for using disproportionate force against civilians. In May, the US Department of State said it was looking into allegations of Israeli abuse of Palestinian detainees. Rights groups, including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, have alleged serious abuse of detainees at the Sde Teiman facility, a former military base in the Negev desert, which Israel has announced will be phased out. Amnesty International this month called on Israel to end the indefinite detention of Palestinians from Gaza and what it called “rampant torture” in its prisons. Amnesty said it had documented 27 cases of Palestinians, including five women and a 14-year-old boy, who were detained “for up to four and a half months” without being able to contact their families. More than 9,000 Palestinian have been detained since Israel launched its war on Gaza. Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies
Israeli military warns of ‘anarchy’ as far-right protesters storm army bases Unrest breaks out after military police detain soldiers over alleged ‘serious abuse’ of Palestinian prisoner. https://www.ft.com/content/f2c90cd8-5253-48dc-8dc7-fda07198aaa1 Israeli soldiers and police confront protesters after they broke into the Beit Lid army base on Monday © Oren Ziv/AFP/Getty Images. Far-right protesters have stormed two army bases in Israel after the military police detained nine soldiers as part of an investigation into the alleged “serious abuse” of a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman prison camp. The unrest began on Monday after protesters broke into Sde Teiman after the military police arrived to detain the soldiers for questioning. The military prison camp has been the subject of legal challenges by human rights groups seeking to have it closed down following multiple reports of serious abuse of Palestinian prisoners. Protesters then broke into a second base later on the same day in Beit Lid, home to the military courts, where the soldiers had been transferred for questioning, prompting the army to deploy additional soldiers to protect the facilities and restore order. Herzi Halevi, the head of Israel’s military, visited the Beit Lid base on Monday night in an attempt to calm the situation and condemned the break-ins, which he said were “not acceptable in any way”. “The arrival of rioters and attempts to break into bases are serious, unlawful behaviours bordering on anarchy, harming the [Israeli military], the security of the state and the war effort,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement two hours after the initial incident, calling for calm and saying that under no circumstances should anyone break into military bases. As of Tuesday morning, he had yet to comment on or condemn the unrest that had occurred since. Yoav Gallant, defence minister, appealed for the public to let the legal authorities do their jobs. “Even in difficult times, the law applies to everyone — nobody may trespass into [Israel Defense Forces] bases or violate the laws of the state of Israel,” he said. Clashes between soldiers and protesters at Beit Lid. The head of Israel’s largest opposition party said of the rioting that ‘all red lines were crossed today’ © Oren Ziv/AFP/Getty Images The Israeli military said its advocate general ordered the investigation into the suspects because of “suspected serious abuse of a detainee” at Sde Teiman, where militants involved in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, as well as Palestinians captured during the ensuing war, are being held. It added that nine suspects had been transferred for questioning by the military police. Israeli media reported that the detainee had been sexually abused, with the Haaretz newspaper reporting that he had been forcibly sodomised and taken to hospital with severe injuries that left him unable to walk. The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel expressed horror at the reports of abuse, saying there “are never any circumstances to justify the use of this sickening practice, not even against the worst of our enemies”. Lawyers representing some of the soldiers said in a statement that the investigation into their clients was “outrageous” and a “disgrace”, and demanded that it be closed immediately. Several ministers from Netanyahu’s Likud party, including economics minister Nir Barkat and justice minister Yariv Levin, have slammed the military advocate general, and far-right politicians reacted with outrage to the detentions. Bezalel Smotrich, the ultranationalist finance minister, posted a video on X, saying that the soldiers were “heroic warriors” and that they should not be arrested like “criminals”. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, who was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism, wrote: “Take your hands off the reservists!” However, opposition politicians expressed shock at the storming of the two military compounds, with far-right ministers and lawmakers among those who broke into Sde Teiman, and armed and masked men among the demonstrators at Beit Lid. Yair Lapid, head of Yesh Atid, Israel’s largest opposition party, said the country was “not on the edge of the abyss, we are in the abyss” and that “all red lines were crossed today”. “[Members of parliament] and ministers who participate in the invasion of violent militias into military bases are a message to the state of Israel: they are done with democracy, they are done with the rule of law. A dangerous fascist group threatens the existence of the state of Israel,” he said.
But Biden, just another zionist asshole in this sorry saga, buries his head in the sand, blithely dumb or stupid.
Don't bomb Beirut: U.S. leads push to rein in Israel's response By Maya Gebeily , Laila Bassam and Timour Azhari July 30, 2024 A view of Beirut's southern suburbs, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon July 28, 2024. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir July 29 (Reuters) - The United States is leading a diplomatic dash to deter Israel from striking Lebanon's capital Beirut or major civil infrastructure in response to a deadly rocket attack on the Golan Heights, five people with knowledge of the drive said. Washington is racing to avert a full-blown war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah after the attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan killed 12 youths at the weekend, according to the five people who include Lebanese and Iranian officials plus Middle Eastern and European diplomats. Israel and the U.S. have blamed Hezbollah for the rocket strike, though the group has denied responsibility. The focus of the high-speed diplomacy has been to constrain Israel's response by urging it against targeting densely populated Beirut, the southern suburbs of the city that form Hezbollah's heartland, or key infrastructure like airports and bridges, said the sources who requested anonymity to discuss confidential details that haven't been previously reported. Lebanon's deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab, who said he had been in contact with U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein since Saturday's Golan attack, told Reuters Israel could avert the threat of major escalation by sparing the capital and its environs. "If they avoid civilians and they avoid Beirut and its suburbs, then their attack could be well calculated," he said. Israeli officials have said that their country wants to hurt Hezbollah but not drag the region into all-out war. The two Middle Eastern and European diplomats said Israel hadn't made any commitment to avoiding strikes on Beirut, its suburbs or civil infrastructure. The U.S. State Department said it wouldn't comment on the specifics of diplomatic conversations, though it was seeking a "durable solution" to end all cross-border fire. "Our support for Israel's security is ironclad and unwavering against all Iran-backed threats, including Hezbollah," a spokesperson told Reuters. White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that Israel had every right to respond to the Golan strike, but that nobody wanted a broader war. "As for conversations over the weekend, you bet we've had them and we had them at multiple levels," he added. "But I'm not going to detail the guts of those conversations." The Israeli Prime Minister's office didn't respond to a request for comment, while Hezbollah declined to comment. The five people with knowledge of the diplomatic push over the past two days have either been involved in the conversations or briefed on them. They said the efforts aimed to achieve a calibrated approach similar to that which contained April's exchange of missile and drone attacks between Israel and Iran, sparked by an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. An Iranian official said the United States had also conveyed messages to Tehran at least three times since Saturday's attack on the Golan Heights, "warning that escalating the situation would be detrimental to all parties." Hezbollah is the most powerful of Iran's "Axis of Resistance" network of regional proxy groups and allied with Palestinian group Hamas. It has been trading fire with the Israeli military across Lebanon's southern border since the Gaza war erupted last October. During a 2006 war, the last time Israel and Hezbollah fought a major conflict, Israeli forces bombed Beirut's southern suburbs, known as the Dahiya, hitting Hezbollah-affiliated buildings as well as residential towers. Beirut airport was bombed and put out of action, and across Lebanon bridges, roads, petrol stations and other infrastructure were destroyed. A French diplomat told Reuters that since the Golan attack, Paris had also been involved in passing messages between Israel and Hezbollah to de-escalate the situation. France has historic ties with Lebanon, which was under French mandate from 1920 till it gained independence in 1943. Paris has maintained close ties since then and has about 20,000 citizens in the country, many dual nationals. The French foreign ministry didn't respond to Reuters requests for comment. The Israeli Homefront Command, a military unit responsible for protecting civilians, has not changed any of its instructions to citizens so far, an indication that the military is not expecting imminent danger from Hezbollah or any other group. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, which comprises 10 ministers and has dictated policy on the Gaza war and Hezbollah, authorized the premier and the defense minister to "decide on the manner and timing of the response" against Hezbollah. This decision, coupled with the abstention of Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners - Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir - suggests that Israel has opted for a response short of the all-out war that some politicians have advocated for. Following the Golan attack, Smotrich had issued a strong statement demanding robust action. He posted on X: "For the death of children, (Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan) Nasrallah should pay with his head. All of Lebanon should pay."
Canada protesters block armoured vehicle company over Israel links A coalition of demonstrators from across the Toronto region have blocked employees from entering the Roshel Armored Vehicles facility in Brampton, Canada, over its alleged ties to Israeli weapons companies. The protesters demanded the Canadian government deny arms export permits that Roshel is seeking to send armoured vehicles to Israel and instead implement a full weapons embargo. “I have witnessed armoured vehicles identical to the ones here in the parking lot at Roshel being used to kidnap my family members and my friends in the West Bank more times than I can count,” said Adham, a protester with the Palestinian Youth Movement who didn’t give his surname. “I myself was beaten physically and tortured psychologically as a 10-year-old simply for being outside when [Israeli] soldiers raided my neighbourhood in Tulkarem refugee camp using these vehicles. As someone who has been living in Brampton for over 10 years, I was absolutely horrified to find out that there is a factory that manufactures and exports armoured vehicles to Israel so close to my house.” BREAKING: 100+ peace activists have just shut down all road access to Roshel’s HQ & factory in Brampton. This weapons co. is trying to export 30+ armoured vehicles to Israel. This week marks 300 days of genocide - we’re putting our bodies on the line to demand an #ArmsEmbargoNow! Israeli army kills 255 people in Khan Younis: Gaza’s Government Media Office A statement on Telegram says about 300 people have been wounded with 31 missing in the nine-day “horrific massacre” carried out on the eastern outskirts of Gaza’s second-largest city. Thirty-one homes were bombed by the Israeli military while their residents were inside, the office said, adding 320 homes and residential buildings were struck in total. The army obstructed operations to reach dozens of wounded during the attack, it said. “We condemn in the strongest terms the Israeli occupation’s horrific massacre against civilians and displaced persons in the east of the Khan Younis governorate,” the office said. It called on the international community to push Israel to stop “the crime of genocide” in Gaza.
The pro-Hamas protestors need a harsh lesson in reality. The first thing they should know is that when the Iranian-backed terrorists are done with Israel, they will be coming for the progressives next. There is a reason the term "useful idiots" was created. The only path to peace involves first eliminating Hamas as a militant and governing entity in Gaza. After this a path towards a two-state solution can be established as a long term solution. Admittedly this will require a more moderate government to be established in Israel; however Netanyahu still outlines some obvious truths about the current situation. Progressive Democrats can’t handle the truth about Gaza and Israel https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jul/29/progressive-democrats-cant-handle-truth-about-gaza/ Last week, one of the world’s great orators came to Washington and delivered an address to Congress that was so powerful and so true that a number of progressive Democrats boycotted his remarks, apparently because they can’t handle the truth. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proved a comment once made by ABC newsman Ted Koppel: “Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach.” Mr. Netanyahu delivered a howling reproach to the anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrators outside the Capitol building and on college campuses when he said: “Defeating our brutal enemies requires both courage and clarity. Clarity begins by knowing the difference between good and evil. Yet incredibly many anti-Israel protesters, many choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas.” He called such people “useful idiots” to Iran, which he said was behind much of the demonstrations that promote hatred of Israel, Jews and, yes, America, as we saw when demonstrators burned American flags outside Union Station and defaced monuments. Just how useful these “idiots” are to Iran was noticeable in an earlier statement by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said anti-Israel demonstrators on college campuses are “on the right side of history.” Mr. Netanyahu mocked the demonstrators: “These protesters chant ’From the river to the sea.’ But many don’t have a clue what river and what sea they’re talking about. They not only get an F in geography, they get an F in history. They call Israel a colonialist state. Don’t they know that the land of Israel is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prayed, where Isaiah and Jeremiah preached and where David and Solomon ruled?” He also responded to Hamas’ propaganda that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip, saying that “despite all the lies you’ve heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to noncombatant casualties in the history of urban warfare. And you want to know where it’s lowest in Gaza? It’s lowest in Rafah.” What about another Hamas lie that humanitarian aid is not reaching civilians (a lie Vice President Kamala Harris perpetuated after she met with Mr. Netanyahu). “The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “This is utter, complete nonsense. It’s a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That’s half a million tons of food, and that’s more than 3,000 calories for every man, woman and child in Gaza. If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren’t getting enough food, it’s not because Israel is blocking it, it’s because Hamas is stealing it.” After meeting with Ms. Harris, Mr. Netanyahu said her public statement differed from what she told him in private. She asserted that Gaza residents were suffering from food insecurity and some were starving. She highlighted the old formula that only a two-state solution can end the regional conflict. This has been debunked so many times by statements from Israel’s enemies, which favor a one-state solution. Amazingly, the line continues to be repeated over several administrations. After his meeting with Mr. Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump said he asked the prime minister why so many American Jews vote for Democrats, many of whom vote against Israel’s (and America’s) interests. “Habit,” he quoted Mr. Netanyahu as saying. What ought to stick with Americans is what Mr. Netanyahu said about Iran’s ultimate goal: “Last month, I heard a revealing comment, ostensibly about the war in Gaza, but about something else. It came from the foreign minister of Iran’s proxy Hezbollah, and he said this: ’This is not a war with Israel. Israel,’ he said, ’is merely a tool.’ The main war, the real war, is with America.’” If Iran is allowed to produce a nuclear bomb, it is likely to prove the truth of that claim.
Israel Bombs Girls’ School in Gaza, Killing 30 and Wounding Over 100 The school was sheltering roughly 4,000 Palestinians and was also acting as a field hospital. By Sharon Zhang , Truthout July 29, 2024 https://truthout.org/articles/israel-bombs-girls-school-in-gaza-killing-30-and-wounding-over-100/ Silhouette of a Palestinian searching for his belongings after Israeli attack struck Khadija School, which also served as a field hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on July 27, 2024. Ashraf Amra / Anadolu via Getty Images Israeli forces killed at least 30 people and injured over 100 in an attack on a girls’ school in central Gaza on Saturday, potentially using what one expert said is a U.S. bomb. The strike on the Khadija School, near Deir al-Balah, killed at least fifteen fifteen children, officials reported. Their bodies were sent to al-Aqsa Hospital nearby, along with people who were injured in the attack. The Associated Press reported seeing a dead toddler loaded into an ambulance after the attack. The aftermath of the attack was chaos, as those who sheltered at the school scrambled to save injured children and searched the rubble, which was “strewn with pillows and other signs of habitation,” The Associated Press wrote. Al-Aqsa, like the other medical facilities in Gaza, was already at capacity before the attack, and Al Jazeera reported that Palestinians injured in the attack were being treated on the floor. The Washington Post reported that there appeared to be an unexploded U.S.-made 250-pound bomb in the wreckage — not only indicating that Israeli forces used a U.S. bomb in the attack, but also indicating a major threat to Palestinians who may accidentally trigger the bomb later. Unexploded ordnances, which experts say comprise about 10 percent of bombs dropped, have already been confirmed to have injured multiple people in Gaza since October. At the time of the attack, the school was acting as a shelter for 4,000 Palestinians displaced in Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign. There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza, and Israel has been steadily shrinking areas it deems “safe” over the past 10 months — while also bombing the so-called safe areas. The school was also being used as a field hospital as part of the al-Aqsa operations, the hospital’s director told France 24. Israeli attacks across central and southern Gaza also killed at least 23 Palestinians on Saturday, amid Israel’s horrific raid on Khan Younis in recent weeks. The school is just one of many in Gaza that Palestinians have been forced to use for other purposes — only for them to be bombed. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has reported that the vast majority of its schools have been turned into shelters amid the genocide, with most homes having been destroyed in Israel’s bombing campaign. The bombing represents yet another attack on Gaza’s schools amid Israel’s scholasticide that has also destroyed every university in the Strip. On July 17, UNRWA observed that Israel had launched eight attacks on schools in Gaza just over the course of the previous 10 days, including attacks on UN-run schools that are now shelters. At the same time, Israeli forces are killing Palestinians via their offensives of famine and disease, weaponizing Palestinians’ own bodies against them while also using enough U.S. weapons to equal the force of multiple nuclear bombs. As a result, at least 10 percent of the population of Gaza has been killed, injured or is missing due to Israel, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported last week. This includes roughly 51,000 people killed, according to Euro-Med’s counts from hospitals and field teams, as well as those missing under the rubble or “disappeared” by Israeli forces and taken to torture camps outside of Gaza.