Update added on February 3:
Brandnew French language video on Israel bombing Rafah in southern Gaza tonight,
leaving 100 civilians dead in a region densely packed with Palestinian refugees.
=> 'Le point après les frappes israéliennes sur Rafah' • FRANCE 24 <=
[Lebanon Files on Feb. 2]
Belgian Foreign Minister Hajjah Lahbib announced on Thursday night that she had summoned Israel's ambassador [woman] to Belgium after raids that “destroyed” the offices of the Belgian Development Agency ENABEL in the Gaza Strip.
ENABEL director Jan van Wetter wrote on Twitter/X:
“All of us at ENABEL are shocked. As a government agency working for the public good within the framework of international humanitarian law, we cannot accept this”. He posted two photos, one of the building where the agency’s offices were located before the alleged bombing, and the other of a pile of rubble.
Destruction of ENABEL locations in Gaza:
Belgium summons the Israeli ambassador.
The two photos provided by ENABEL director Jan van Wetter, today shown
on the website of Belgian Radio Television for the French community RTBF.
Belgian Foreign Minister Hajjah Lahbib
wrote on her Twitter/X account tonight:
" The offices of Enabel, the Belgian development agency in Gaza, were bombed and destroyed.
Targeting civilian buildings is unacceptable.
With @carogennez, we are summoning the ambassador of Israel to clarify the matter. "
@carogennez is another minister of the Belgium government involved in the subject:
......................
Israeli bombing of Rafah left 100 civilians dead
La ville de Rafah, où se sont réfugiés plus d'un million de Palestiniens menacés par la guerre à Gaza, est le théâtre d'intenses frappes israéliennes. Le ministère de la Santé du Hamas a annoncé le décès d'au moins 100 civils dans la soirée et la nuit, dont 14 tôt samedi dans des frappes sur deux résidences de Rafah.
The city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians threatened by the war in Gaza have taken refuge, has been the scene of intense Israeli strikes. Hamas' health ministry announced the deaths of at least 100 civilians in the evening and night, including 14 early Saturday in strikes on two Rafah residences.
[French language video provided by France 24 on Saturday Feb. 3]
Identified regions of visitor origin and / or
regional internet nodes for January 2024
followed by a choice of 2 recent visitors
who are interested in Israeli proceedings
and the latest count of page views related
to visitors from Israel on February 7, 2024.
Update added on February 2
Belgian Foreign Minister Hajjah Lahbib announced on Thursday night that she had summoned the Israeli ambassador to Belgium after raids that “destroyed” the offices of the Belgian Development Agency ENABEL in the Gaza Strip.
[Lebanon Files on Feb. 2]
War on Gaza:
Ex-UNRWA chief [Matthias] Schmale: Cooperation with Hamas is inevitable. The former [German] head of the UN refugee agency in the Gaza Strip, Schmale, has defended UNRWA's ties to the militant Islamist Hamas. He told Deutschlandfunk that without pragmatic cooperation with Hamas, humanitarian aid could not be provided in the Gaza Strip. However, this does not mean agreeing with or supporting their objectives.
[Deutschlandfunk, German National Radio, Jan. 30]
The former German UNRWA coordinator, responsible for the supply of human aid to the Gaza Strip, alleged that the current debate about cancelling all UNRWA aid to the Palestinian people might be "politically motivated". During his time of four years in office, all employees of UNWRA were under strict observation to avoid any illegal activities. Yet, only 8 employees among 13.000 had to be fired because of misusing their positions for "betraying the goals of UNRWA" which makes up for 0,06 % of intolerable personnel. The reported rate of an alleged 10 % of UNRWA employees supporting Hamas seems therefore much exaggerated.
Matthias Schmale agreed to take over another task in East Africa during a time of increasing pressure from the Hamas taking him for a "pro-Israel guy". Nevertheless, he mentions that responsibility for the entrance of human aid into the Gaza Strip is not totally in the hands of Hamas. Israeli forces are responsible as well and which has led to the current situation .....
Yesterday, January 29, Wall Street Journal WSJ came with allegations of 12 UNRWA employees being involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. They mention that UNRWA sources have been quoted by South Africa in their charge against Israel before the International Court of Justice.
....................................
International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Janary 27
Before the foundation of UNO and its organizations after World War II.
Update added on Jan. 27, anniversary of the
Liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp
& International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks
after ICJ orders Israel to prevent acts of genocide.
[Broadcast begins 01:50 minutes after video start]
محكمة العدل الدولية تطلب من إسرائيل منع ارتكاب "إبادة" في غزة
وكانت جنوب إفريقيا طلبت قرارا بإجراءات عاجلة تتضمن وقفا للعمليات العسكرية في قطاع غزة، إلا أن القرار لم يلحظ ذلك
...............
وتابعت أن على إسرائيل "اتّخاذ جميع الإجراءات الممكنة لمنع التحريض المباشر والعلني على ارتكاب إبادة والمعاقبة عليه"، و"عليها أن تمنع كل أعمال الإبادة المحتملة في قطاع غزة
"
و
رفعت بريتوريا الدعوى متهمة إسرائيل
بانتهاك اتفاقية الأمم المتحدة لمنع جريمة الإبادة الجماعية والمعاقبة
عليها المبرمة في العام 1948
كرد عالمي على محرقة اليهود إبان الحرب العالمية الثانية
...............
International Court of Justice asks Israel to prevent 'genocide' in Gaza
South Africa had requested a resolution for urgent measures, including a cessation of military operations in the Gaza Strip, but the resolution did not take this into account.
...............
Israel must "take all feasible measures to prevent and punish direct and public incitement to commit genocide," and "it must prevent all possible acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip."
Pretoria filed the lawsuit accusing Israel of violating the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as a global response to the Holocaust during World War Two.
...............
"عالم رأسا على عقب"
وكانت المحامية عادلة هاشم من
وفد جنوب إفريقيا إلى المحكمة
قالت خلال جلسات سابقة هذا الشهر
أمام هذه المحكمة أدلة تم جمعها خلال الأسابيع الـ13 الماضية تُظهر بصورة لا تقبل الشك نمطًا من السلوك والنوايا يبرّر الادعاء المعقول بارتكاب أعمال إبادة
وقبل انعقاد الجلسة الجمعة، أعربت
وزيرة خارجية جنوب إفريقيا ناليدي باندور
عن
"أمل"
بلادها، مؤكدة على أهمية تسليط الضوء على
مصير الأبرياء في فلسطين
ووصفت
وزارة الخارجية في جنوب إفريقيا
القرار بعد صدوره
بـالانتصار الحاسم
للقانون الدولي و
خطوة على طريق الألف ميل في البحث عن العدالة للفلسطينيين
"Upside Down World"
Lawyer Adela Hashim of the South African delegation to the court said during earlier hearings this month: "Before this court is evidence gathered over the past 13 weeks that unequivocally shows a pattern of conduct and intent that justifies a reasonable allegation of genocide."
Ahead of Friday's session, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor expressed her country's "hope", stressing the importance of highlighting "the fate of innocent people in Palestine."
South Africa's foreign ministry called the resolution a "decisive victory" of international law and "a step on the road to a thousand miles in the search for justice for the Palestinians."
[Lebanon Files ليبانون فايلز on Jan. 26]
...............
Timeline - The Warsaw Ghetto
International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27
The Warsaw ghetto uprising was an act of resistance by the Jewish population in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II in an effort to stop transportation of their people to the extermination camps in Majdanek and Treblinka.
For 10 years now, an empty streetcar has rolled silently through the streets of Warsaw on January 27. Instead of a route number, it has a large Star of David on the roof. Its route takes it through the part of the city that Poland's Nazi occupiers turned into Europe's largest Jewish ghetto in 1940.
و"كالات" : في وقت يسعى الاتحاد الأوروبي خلال مباحثاته لإنشاء دولة فلسطينية على أساس أنها السبيل الوحيد الموثوق لتحقيق السلام في الشرق الأوسط، فوجئ المشاركون باقتراح اسرائيل بناء
جزيرة للفلسطينيين في عرض البحر الأبيض
وكان الاتحاد الأوروبي أعرب فعلا عن قلقه إزاء الرفض الواضح لرئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو لفكرة إنشاء الدولة الفلسطينية سابقا
وبحسب مصادر، فإن وزير الخارجية الاسرائيلي تجاهل المقاربة الأوروبية التي شرحها عدد من الوزراء في جلسة تحولت الى مشهد سريالي
ولم تتردد اسرائيل بعرض
مقترحها بناء جزيرة في عرض البحر الأبيض
حيث ينقل اليها سكان قطاع غزة، في موقف أثار استغرابا واسعا في القاعة وانتقادات من دول عدة منها بلجيكا والبرتغال
وقال دبلوماسي أوروبي
إن النقاشات مع الجانب الاسرائيلي كانت بمثابة
حوار الطرشان
من جهة أخرى فند رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو أمس الاثنين فيما يبدو تكهنات إعلامية ذكرت أن جهودا تجري لإبرام اتفاق هدنة جديد في غزة
Netanyahu: Hamas has not made any serious proposal
[According to News] "Agencies": At a time when the European Union seeks during its talks to establish a Palestinian state on the basis that it is the only reliable way to achieve peace in the Middle East, participants were surprised by Israel's proposal to build an island for Palestinians in the Mediterranean.
The European Union has already expressed concern over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apparent rejection of the idea of founding a Palestinian state.
According to sources, the Israeli foreign minister ignored the European approach explained by a number of ministers in a session that turned into a surreal scene.
Israel did not hesitate to present its proposal to build an island in the Mediterranean, where residents of the Gaza Strip would be transferred, a position that raised wide eyebrows in the hall and criticism from several countries, including Belgium and Portugal.
A European diplomat said the discussions with the Israeli side were tantamount to a dialogue between two deaf.
Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday appeared to have refuted media speculation that efforts were underway to conclude a new truce agreement in Gaza.
[The Morning السباح, Kuwait, early morning edition on January 23 (local date)]
Israel-E.U. Meeting on Gaza’s Future
Yields Division and Confusion
Europeans, insisting on Palestinian statehood, are frustrated by Israel’s opposition and lack of a postwar plan for the devastated Gaza Strip. [New York Times on late Jan. 22 (local time)]
Violent explosions after a drone attack rocked positions inside the province of Erbil – the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan – as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for the attack. In the details, Al-Arabiya / Al-Hadath reported on Monday [Jan. 15] that 6 explosions occurred in different areas in Erbil, northern Iraq. They also said that Iraq's Erbil airport halted air traffic after explosions rang out in the city. A security source told Al-Arabiya/Al-Hadath that the attack was carried out with long-range missiles and drones.
New U.S. Consulate Headquarters
Kurdish sources said a six-rocket attack took place at the new US consulate (under construction) in the northern suburbs of Erbil. The sources also said the rocket attack was carried out from Iran's Kermanshah province, which borders the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Revolutionary Guards Adopt [Responsibility]
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the attack and said it had attacked "spy centers and gatherings of anti-Iran terrorist groups" in Erbil, Iraq, Iranian media reported.
This development comes a few days after the Counter-Terrorism Service in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq announced the downing of a booby-trapped drone targeting international coalition forces that are stationed near Erbil airport last Thursday evening, making up for the second attack in 24 hours. On Wednesday evening, the region's counter-terrorism service [had already] reported a similar attack, for which [pro-Iranian] armed factions in Iraq claimed responsibility.
Since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, US military has already been subjected to about 130 attacks in Iraq and Syria through a combination of rockets and mined drones. Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder previously announced that US facilities had been hit by 127 attacks since the escalation began in the region, 52 in Iraq and 75 in Syria. This prompted America to respond by striking some of the pro-Iranian armed factions in the two countries, the most important of which was the strike that targeted the headquarters of Harakat al-Nujaba east of Baghdad in early January 2024.
It is noteworthy that the United States are deploying 900 troops in Syria, and 2,500 soldiers on Iraqi soil as part of the coalition forces that provide advice and assistance to local forces in order to prevent the return of DAESH [Islamic State], which in 2014 controlled large areas of territory in both countries before its defeat.
[Lebanese Forces Official Website on Jan. 15]
.......................
Militant anti-Iranian organization in Pakistan under attack by Iranian missiles
Meeting between Indian and Iranian Foreign Ministers during Davos Forum
According to sources such as the Global Network, Pakistan distributed a message in the early morning of the 17th, accusing Iran of launching an attack on its airspace, which caused serious consequences such as the killing of two children and the injury of three girls. The Pakistani statement warned Tehran that this could trigger "serious consequences".
Blueprint Editor's Note:
Pakistan's warning is only related to the killing of civilists by an unprecise Iranian missile attack.
In fact Iran and Pakistan are allies in their fight against "Baloch terrorists" as their common enemy.
Only two days later, another Chinese article praised the joint operation of both countries' air forces
targeting the same group in Iran on Jan. 18. The article underlines the efficiency of Iran's air force
in contrast to the faulty Iranian missile attack on terrorist strongholds in Pakistan on Jan. 17. The
whole story seems to have something of a planned deception in it .....
Iranian media mentioned that Iran used missiles and drones to strike the strongholds of the "Justice Army", and two strongholds in Balochistan province in Pakistan were destroyed. Groups claim that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps fired a large number of rockets, as well as six attack drones.
Earlier, Iran had just launched missiles against targets in Syria and Iraq, triggering a "strong warning" from the United States because the strike site was even close to the U.S. consulate facility and reportedly destroyed Israel's Mossad establishment. However, Iran behaved very tough this time, and did not forget to notify the UN Security Council after the fight, emphasizing Tehran's right to "fight terrorism" and "self-defense".
Russian media reports also show that on the 16th, Iranian Foreign Minister Abdollahian met with Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Kakar during the Davos forum, and it is not clear whether there was any mention of the strike incident that day. However, there is a detail that Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar also recently arrived in Tehran and met with Abdollahian, and it is said that he also agreed on projects such as long-term cooperation at the Chabahar port. Jaishankar's two-day trip means that Jaishankar may still be in Iran when Iran strikes Pakistani targets.
Iran and India met and Pakistan was hit by heavy air strikes, which happened by a bit of a coincidence. In fact, after Iran's air strikes in Syria and Iraq, China has already made its position clear. The [Chinese] Ministry of Foreign Affairs appealed to all parties to exercise restraint and not allow the situation to continue to escalate.
[腾讯网, China Mainland, on Jan. 17]
....................
Evaluation: The Military Situation of Hamas related Qassam Brigades in Gaza
Impact assessment of the 100-day conflict between Palestine and Israel:
Gaza’s farmland damaged and Israel’s technology industry severely hit.
The Qassam Brigades, an armed faction affiliated with Hamas, has not disclosed its organizational structure and specific number of personnel, but some analysts estimate that the number of Qassam Brigades is roughly 30,000 to 45,000. A research report released by the American think tank "Institute of War Studies" shows that the Qassam Brigade had at least 26 to 30 combat battalions in the early stages of the war, with each battalion having 400 to 1,000 soldiers. After more than three months of fighting, only three battalions were completely wiped out. Among the remaining military forces, about 4 to 5 battalions have been weakened but can still fight alone or in conjunction with other units.
Al Jazeera analyzed that although Israel relied on its excellent intelligence capabilities to kill at least five Hamas commanders from five battalions in targeted air strikes, almost all of the "decapitated" troops continued under the command of deputy commanders. The battle fully proves that Hamas still has sufficient reserves of troops in the rear.
...............
Robert Looney, a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, also held a similar view in an article on the "World Politis Review" website, that is, Israel's agriculture, high-tech industries, tourism and construction industries have been severely affected by the war. Since the outbreak of the conflict, Israel has mobilized a total of 360,000 reservists, accounting for approximately 10% to 15% of the country's working population. As a large number of young and middle-aged workers were recruited into the army, many high-tech talents chose to immigrate due to the war. The war dealt a heavy blow to high-tech industries that help boost the economy and attract foreign investment. Robert warned that Israel should reach a peace agreement as soon as possible, citing brain drain, relocation of high-tech industries and serious labor shortages in sectors such as construction and agriculture, which may further worsen Israel's economic situation.
...............
It is not difficult to see that with the turmoil on the Lebanese-Israeli border and the spread of the Red Sea crisis, the risk of spillover from the Gaza war is also increasing. Shu Meng believes that as a continuation of its retaliatory activities against Hamas, the frequency of Israel's targeted strikes against senior Hamas leaders in Lebanon will definitely increase. In addition, the Houthis have taken various actions under the slogan of supporting Palestine to enhance their legitimacy and influence at home and abroad. The Red Sea security issue has become an important platform for the Houthis to use their small skills to make a big difference. “If the Palestine-Israel issue does not receive international attention and political resolution in the future, it will continue to be entangled with other regional issues, and more conflict parties will use the Palestine-Israel conflict as an excuse to enhance their influence, actions and legality." Shu Meng analyzed.
[Shu Meng is an assistant researcher at the Institute of Middle East Studies at Shanghai International Studies University.]
[澎湃新闻, Chinese state-owned digital newspaper, on Jan. 16]
Gadi Eisenkot, member of Israel's war cabinet and former chief of staff for
Israeli Defense Force (IDF), is favouring a cease-fire as the only means to
free Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Interview with Israel's Channel 12 TV.
Eisenkot added that those claiming hostages can be freed through military
pressure were spreading illusions. [Times of Israel / AP on Jan. 19, 2024]
South Africa that lived through the experience of an Apartheid regime for decades
is now going to try Israel for the actual genocide of the Palestinian people as the
ultima ratio of an Apartheid regime that has lasted longer than since Oct. 7, 2023,
the day of an unexpected Hamas attack. South Africa is therefore expected to go
back in time to the very foundation of the State of Israel and which would bring up
a case of suppression of a people that had been expelled from its homeland long
before violence escalated to the actual level. [Videos: Al-Jazeera/BBC on Jan. 11]
أعلنت وزارة الصحة في قطاع غزة في بيان اليوم الجمعة إن 23708 فلسطينيين على الأقل لقوا حتفهم
وأصيب 60005 آخرين في الغارات الإسرائيلية على قطاع غزة منذ السابع من أكتوبر
وقالت الوزارة إن نحو 151 فلسطينيا قتلوا وأصيب 248 خلال الساعات الأربع والعشرين الماضية
The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced in a statement on Friday
that at least 23,708 Palestinians have been killed and 60,005 injured in Israeli
raids on the Gaza Strip since October 7. Some 151 Palestinians were killed
and 248 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.
[MENAFN, Middle East and North Africa Financial Network, publisher: Al-Bawaba, on Jan. 12]
Editor of Israel's Newspaper Haaretz Condemns Netanyahu's Government
Gideon Levy in an interview with DemocracyNow.org two months ago.
The member of Haaretz editorial board has also accused Israel's army
of indiscriminate killing in Gaza, live on Israeli TV only three days ago.
Ofer Cassif, far-left member of Israel's parliament Knesseth declared his support
of South Africa accusing Israel for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Malaysia, Turkey and Bolivia recently joined South Africa in its appeal to the ICJ.
[Hindustan Times on Jan. 8, 2024]
Major Mossad Activities - Successful or Foiled -
Turkish police detained 33 people suspected of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence service and of targeting foreigners living in Turkey, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Tuesday (January 2).
Police raided 57 locations in eight provinces as part of an investigation - dubbed "Operation Mole" - launched by the Istanbul prosecutor's counter-terrorism bureau and the MIT intelligence agency, Yerlikaya said.
He said on social media platform X that the suspects were believed to be aiming to identify, monitor, assault and kidnap foreign nationals living in Turkey. The state-run Anadolu news agency said authorities were seeking 13 others.
Last month, Turkish officials warned Israel of "serious consequences" if it tried to hunt down members of the militant group Hamas living outside Palestinian territories, including in Turkey. President Tayyip Erdogan warned that would be a mistake.
[Times & Sunday Times on Jan. 2, 2024]
Hamas says its deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri has been killed in
an explosion in the Lebanese capital Beirut which is infuriating
Lebanon's government. - News Report and Political Analysis.
[Channel 4, British TV station, on Jan. 2, 2024]
ماذا تعرف عن الشهيد الأقرع الذي اغتيل رفقة العاروري؟
كان وقع خبر استشهاد القيادي البارز في كتائب القسام، عزام الأقرع صادما على عائلته ورفاقه، وهو الذي نجح على مدار 35 عاما من الإفلات، رغم المطاردة المستمرة من قبل قوات الاحتلال وأجهزته الاستخبارية.يعد الأقرع الذي يبلغ 54 عاما من العمر أحد أبرز قيادات كتائب القسام في الساحات الخارجية، لا سيما لبنان التي عاش أكثر من نصف حياته فيها، بعد أن نفاه الاحتلال خارج بلدته الأصلية قبلان عام 1992، إبان حملة الملاحقة التي تعرضت لها قيادة حركة حماس آنذلك، وجرى إبعاد المئات إلى منطقة مرج الزهور جنوب لبنان.
What do you know about the martyr Al-Aqra' who was assassinated together with Al-Arouri?
The news of the martyrdom of the prominent leader of the Qassam Brigades, Azzam Al-Aqra, was shocking to his family and comrades, who succeeded over 35 years of escape, despite the continuous pursuit by the occupation forces and his intelligence services.Al-Aqra, 54 years old, is one of the most prominent leaders of the Qassam Brigades in the external arenas, especially Lebanon, where he lived more than half of his life, after the occupation exiled him outside his native town of Qabalan in 1992, during the campaign of persecution against the leadership of Hamas was then deported to the Marj al-Zuhur area in southern Lebanon.
[Beirut Time on Jan. 6, 2024]
The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel room in Dubai
on 19 January 2010. => The Complete Timeline of a Murder <= in a
31 minutes sequence of videos registered by surveillance cameras.
The Mossad team could be identified and arrested at Dubai airport.
Please note: One member of the killing team is still wearing a single
protection glove while hurriedly leaving Al-Bustan hotel. [The Guardian]
On 25 September, 1997, Israel's spy agency attempted to assassinate
Palestinian political leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman, the capital of Jordan.
The brazen attempt on the life of the then 41-year-old head of the Hamas
Political Bureau sparked a diplomatic row which threatened to wreck the
newly-signed peace deal between Jordan and Israel. The crisis ended with
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making a number of humiliating
concessions. [Middle East Monitor 2020]
Independently from the above listed assaults on prominent members of Hamas, Iran's nuclear program was subsequently targeted by Mossad. While Israel's own nuclear arsenal remains an unspoken reality and was never openly contested, Iranian efforts are thoroughly scrutinized by many Western nations. And there have been press reports about Mossad operations that were intended to prevent Iran from reaching their goal: Four assassinations of nuclear scientists in Iran, accomplished since 2010, and several sophisticated activities to destroy Iran's ability to produce weapons-grade Uranium.
The last killing of an Iranian scientist is dating back to November 2020 when top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in a sophisticated hit led by a Mossad team. The team reportedly deployed a computerized machine gun using artificial intelligence, required no on-site operatives, took less than a minute, and did not injure anyone else, including the scientist’s wife who was with him at the time. [Times of Israel in September 2021]
Germany's Rigid Policy
Organized by the United Palestinian National Committee, nearly 1,200 protesters held a solidarity demonstration at Adenauerplatz [Adenauer Square in Berlin]. They decried Germany's stance on Israel, with crowd chanting slogans such as "Shame on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz" and "Shame on (Foreign Minister) Annalena Baerbock".
The participants later held a march on Kurfurstendamm, one of Berlin's most famous avenues, while shouting pro-Palestinian slogans. Along with a large Palestinian flag, the protesters also carried signs, some of which read: "Cease-fire now" and "stop the genocide".
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly said that Israel's security is non-negotiable, and in the current conflict with Hamas, Germany “has only one place,” and that is “firmly at the side of Israel."
.................
A recent poll revealed that the German government's pro-Israel stance on the Gaza conflict is seemingly not supported by the public. Some 43% of those surveyed said that Germany should stay out of the conflict, and only 34% said they agree with the view that Germany bears special responsibility for Israel due to its Nazi past.
[Yeni Safak, Turkey, on Dec. 31]
Palestine - An Alarming Development
An opinion poll proves increasing support for Hamas organization
in the occupied Westbank where Hamas used to be in opposition
to the Palestinian administration of Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah.
[Deutsche Welle, German National Radio, on Dec. 31]
Far-right Israeli minister calls for resettlement of Gaza after the war
saying this is a beautiful land to be rebuilt by and for Israeli settlers
after Palestinian emigration. [Al-Jazeera on Dec. 31]
Israel - Judicial Chaos and Accusation of Genocide
Israel's High Court strikes down Netanyahu's judicial reform law
[TRT World, Turkey, on Jan. 2, 2024]
The Palestinian Gaza Strip health department said on December 31 that Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours resulted in a total of 150 deaths. Since the outbreak of a new round of conflict between Palestine and Israel on October 7, Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have resulted in approximately 21,000 deaths and more than 56,000 injuries.
[Youth Net 青年网 on Dec. 31]
Sultan Barakat, a professor of public policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, says that the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice [ICJ] will be “the most important instrument of international pressure against Israel”.
“The way that South Africa has addressed this issue is that they are purely focused on the fact that Israel, by December 29 when the case was filed, has murdered more than 20,000 civilians without achieving any clear goal, in that they seem to be pursuing a genocide against the Palestinian people and specifically within Gaza,” Barakat said.
The ICJ works slightly differently from the International Criminal Court [ICC] in that its mandate covers all the state members of the United Nations, Barakat explained.
“And Israel for them it’s very important to be recognised as a state. This is the only country in the world that talks about the right to exist, [whereas] every other state is comfortable within their own foundation.”
[Al-Jazeera,Qatar, on Jan. 2, 2024]
Israel on Monday Dec. 25 intensified its attack in Gaza, killing more than 100 people at Maghazi refugee camp, with Palestinian authorities saying some 250 Palestinians have been killed over the past 24 hours. Christmas Eve in Gaza was also marred by heavy bombardments from the Israeli military in its continued fight against Hamas which led to the levelling of buildings and injuries to over 500 people. With temperatures dropping and poor weather conditions, Palestinian refugees are struggling to keep themselves warm during the winter season. The New York Times reported on Sunday Dec. 24 that frigid winter conditions combined with rain have left tents utterly useless, with many seen only with thin blankets to keep themselves warm.
[Arirang, South Korea's National TV on December 25]
Urban street fighting in Gaza: Hamas's tenacity versus Israel's challenge
2023-12-23 20:37 Posted in: Fujian Province
Urban street fighting in Gaza continues to rage, and the Israeli army faces a protracted and fierce conflict. The Hamas militant group has demonstrated excellent tactics and tenacious will to confront the powerful Israeli army, fully demonstrating the actual combat capabilities of homemade weapons on the battlefield. This bloody, brutal, tense urban street battle has further complicated the situation in the Middle East as a whole.
............
In the current tense situation, the challenges and dilemmas of the fighting between Israel and Hamas remain to be resolved. Peace and stability can be brought to the region only through the joint efforts of all parties, including internal and external coordination. We hope that both sides will reach a lasting solution in a rational and pragmatic manner to keep innocent people out of the shadow of war.
Flooding Gaza City !
Israel poured water into the Hamas tunnel, and this was the last big show bet
The Wall Street Journal quoted U.S. officials as saying that the Israeli military has begun flooding the vast network of tunnels of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip with seawater. The Israeli military has not responded to the report, saying the attack on the tunnel was a classified operation. According to the latest Israeli military counts, 135 hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip, and it is unclear whether they are inside the tunnels.
When asked about the "submersion plan", US President Joe Biden only said that he was "uncertain" about the situation of the hostages in the tunnel. In addition, experts are concerned that flooding the Gaza Strip's underground tunnels with seawater could create additional potential hazards for Gaza, which is already facing serious water challenges.
It is therefore that current Israeli flooding of the Hamas tunnels with sea water is nothing more but a desperate choice after exhausting all options. Since the Israeli military has not previously used the method of submergence, the effectiveness of this plan remains to be seen. The [Israeli army] might encounter great difficulties: First, the lack of information about the details of the tunnels and how the sea water flows, as well as the possibility of drainage facilities in the Hamas tunnels making it difficult to assess the effect of inundation.
A second [difficulty] is that the Hamas tunnels are not fully interconnected, and it is unlikely that Israel's military will flood all of them. A third [problem] is that the Gaza Strip is located in a desert environment with unique geological conditions, and Hamas tunnels may be inherently permeable. Some seawater may seep into the soil, potentially triggering a geological hazard in Gaza and affecting the effectiveness of inundation. Finally, the vertical shafts (entrances and exits) of the Hamas tunnel are numerous and hidden. When a Hamas tunnel is flooded, they may have escaped earlier or through a different vertical shaft after encountering a flood.
[腾讯网 on Dec. 21]
Latest death toll of the Gaza conflict,
data published by BBC on Dec. 21:
Counting the dead is a challenge in any war zone, and doctors in Gaza say the death toll is likely to be significantly higher, as it does not include bodies buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings or those not taken to hospitals. [Quotation from BBC on December 21]
Bethlehem [Arab.: bait lakhm] بـيــــت لـحــــم Arabic: House of Meat - Hebrew: House of Bread
Latest body count on Dec. 9, 2023:
Palestinian death toll reached 17.487
including 7.729 children, 5.153 women
according to the Gaza Health Ministry
compared with 1.200 Israelis perished
on October 7 according to Israeli stats.
[about 1.150 according to Al-Jazeera]
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Recording of the declaration in Aramaic (Isaric dialect),
the language Jesus from Nazareth would have used:
Transcript:
Yàlidïn ìnon čol-ènašëya čwaþ χeḁrrëya we šàwyëya va ǧurča we va zìdqëya. Bìyìzvədun yal χuešaba we yal þeḁrþa, we koyìsˀərun χàd ləwaþ χàd va ruχa di àχuþa.
Aramaic is a Semitic language which was the lingua franca of the Near East for a time comprising 1.400 years, i.e. from the 7th century BC until the 7th century AD, when it was widely replaced by Arabic, another Semitic language. Classical or Imperial Aramaic was the official language of the Persian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires, and it spread as far as Greece and the Indus valley.
At biblical times, Aramaic was the language of the ordinary people of Jerusalem and appears in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. At the time of Jesus it existed side by side with biblical Hebrew which should have been preferred by the gentry of Jerusalem, the Pharisees and Sadducees. Today, Aramaic is still used as a liturgical language by Christian communities in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and is spoken by small numbers of people in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia and Georgia.
Christmas song in Arabic, performed by Fairuz فــيــروز, a Christian Lebanese and a famous artist in the Arab world.
Christmas hymns from the Syriac and Maronite rites تـراتـيل ميـلادـية من الـطـقوس السريانـيّة والمـارونـيّة
provided by the Lebanese Maronite Order. These are
religious chants sung in Aramaic and some in Arabic.
Jesus from Nazareth is being seen by followers of the Islamic belief as one of the Prophets or messengers of Allah, and there is a remarkable Sura quoting Jesus when naming his successor as the next messenger of Allah. Serious Christian theologists have stumbled on a related text included in the Bible and come to a similar conclusion, however by some complicated deduction which I would like to spare you:
And 'remember' when Jesus, son of Mary, said, “O children of Israel! I am truly Allah’s messenger to you, confirming the Torah which came before me, and giving good news of a messenger after me whose name will be Aḥmad.” Yet when the Prophet came to them with clear proofs, they said, “This is pure magic.”
[Qur'an 61.6 - The Qur'an sample above is shown in fully-vocalized Arabic and represents the writing already used in the 8th century when Arabic was fully developed to preserve the 'holy book'.]
The name of 'Ahmed' is likely to be mixed up with 'Mohamed', hinting at the Prophet of Islam. Both forenames are widely used in Islamic communities and have something in common which is characteristic for Semitic languages. Semitic idioms are based on an alphabet mainly consisting of consonants. Vocals, especially the short ones, are usually not included in the writing of Arabic, Aramaic and biblical Hebrew, while the root of a word consists of three consonants. Such, there is not much difference in the writing of two names closely related to each other:
احـمـد
Ahmad
مـحـمـد
Mohamed
Additional consonants can be added to the root and short vowels might change according to word meaning and grammatic rules.
..................................
'Bilingual' Israel
As to Arabic and its predecessor Aramaic, both languages
have been used by peoples and tribes who came from the
same region or the same state.
Israel, however is being regarded as 'bilingual': Modern
Hebrew and Arabic should be used side by side.In fact,
the Palestinians do what they always have done, they are
speaking their regional dialect of Arabic. Some of them,
in direct contact with Jews have adopted Hebrew as well.
On the other hand, modern Hebrew is being used by a
certain percentage of educated Jews as an everyday
language. That idiom has been developed on the the basis
of biblical hebrew, still used in religious rites, and
avoids the shortcomings of its predecessor by applying
rules to identify vowels. However, those speaking modern
Hebrew belong to a mixed community of people coming from
all parts of Europe and the Near East and belonging to
all kinds of races and tribes.
As there is no 'Semitic race' like there is no
'Arian race', both expressions being promoted at the times
of the holocaust but lacking any scientific evidence,there
should be no consistent Jewish race either.
Even though members of the Jewish diaspora are being
regarded as the descendants of historic tribes originating from Palestine, they
had been uprooted in their homeland for some reason and were scattered all over
Europe where they suffered a changing fate as outsiders within closed regional
societies. The distinction between Sephardim (from Portugal and Spain), Ashkenazi
(from Western Europe) and Mizrahim (from the Middle East) is therefore nothing
more but an indicator for their main locations of settlement, while being entirely
different from their historic predecessors after a process of delocation lasting
some 2.000 years and the steady need to cope with new realities.
Therefore, modern Hebrew is the language of the descendants of a mixed
population, united by religion and/or nationalist loyalism to their State of Israel,
and which had been planted 75 years ago on the ground of an Arab people.
The new settlers, however, failed in finding some kind of modus vivendi with the 'indigenous people'
on the basis of equality. And here we are today ......
Statistics:
The current population of Israel is 9,2 million as of December 2023.
About 2 million are considered as native speakers of Literary Arabic.
About 5 million are regarded as native speakers of modern Hebrew.
However, 9 million Israelis are being considered as having at least
some basic knowledge of modern Hebrew. Editor's Remark: When
IDF invaded Gaza in November / December 2023, they declared
having deployed 'Arabic speaking Israeli soldiers' in the process.
............................
I was raised and educated at a time, when there was much sympathy for the lucky survivors of German concentration camps, and nobody earnestly contested their wish to settle in Palestine where they could hope for a new beginning.
What we didn't realize at the time was the fact that founding a new state for different people was closely related with the concept of replacing the original inhabitants, the Palestinian Arabs, by reducing their civil rights and confiscating or destroying their dwellings. It must have been clear to Ben Gourion and his co-founders from the beginning: This would not be a morally clean process. And it wasn't. When I visited Israel after the war of Yom Kippur, I met with two entirely different generations of Israeli citizens: The survivors of the holocaust, friendly people to speak with, and their young descendants of my age who never had made the experience of their ancestors, yet showing a militant attitude towards the Arabs whom they regarded as human waste that must be kept under control by an 'invincible' Israeli army and Israel's 'world-famous' secret service.
The catastrophe of forced Jewish settlement (An-Nakba) in the late 1940ies was covered up by some kind of 'brain washing' in Israel's presentation abroad, in combination with a long-standing German taboo regarding any criticism of questionable activities whatsoever, especially when it comes to Israel's => policy of illegal settlements in the Westbank. Another typical example is Israel's treatment of => Günther Grass, German laureate of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and who dared to respectfully critisize Israel on the subject of military upgrading their army with German submarines. This was leading to his public evaluation as an 'antisemite' and 'persona non grata'.
This time, however, it is different. The world is mourning at least 20.000 Palestinians, comprising many children and women, who became the victims of a modern genocide that brought Israel nothing more than one single hostage freed from Hamas by IDF while three further hostages were accidentally shot by Israel's army. Furthermore, 2.000 Israeli soldiers have been disabled during the invasion of Gaza [Al-Jazeera / BBC in December 2023].
Even tedious negotiations between Israel and Hamas, both sides employing diplomatic channels, finally proved to be more successful.
...........................
Jews seem to have their difficulties with Christmas.
In a question on the Rabbi Phone, somebody asks
if he were allowed to attend a Christmas party of
his company, fearing to loose his job if he doesn't.
The Rabbi allows his participation in general, but
not without a stern warning against what he calls
"villageous sky activities" and which should mean
praying in front of a Christmas manger marked by
the 'Star of Bethlehem'. He should eat kosher food
and refrain from drinking too much, thus avoiding
to get his brain caught by the company. And of
course no wrong entertainment !
