cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20455372

September 16, 2024

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20455628

September 18, 2024

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20455710

Jeremy Scahill, Murtaza Hussain, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous

Sep 18, 2024

This week’s attacks were not, as Israel’s defenders claimed, “surgical” or a “precisely targeted anti-terrorist operation”. Israel and Hezbollah are sworn enemies. The current round of fighting has seen tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the Israel-Lebanon border because of the Shia militant group’s rocket and artillery attacks.

However, the pager bombs were clearly intended to target individual civilians – diplomats and politicians – who were not directly participating in hostilities. The plan appeared to produce what lawyers might call “excessive incidental civilian harm”. Both these arguments have been levelled at Russia to claim Moscow was committing war crimes in Ukraine. It’s hard to say why the same reasoning is not applied to Israel – apart from that it is a western ally.

Such disproportionate attacks, which seem illegal, are not only unprecedented but may also become normalised. If that is the case, the door is opened for other states to lethally test the laws of war. The US should step in and restrain its friend, but Joe Biden shows no sign of intervening to stop the bloodshed. The road to peace runs through Gaza, but Mr Biden’s ceasefire plan – and the release of hostages – has not found favour with either Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Hamas.

On September 18th, the UN General Assembly is scheduled to debate and vote on a resolution calling on Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within six months. Given that the General Assembly, unlike the exclusive 15-member UN Security Council, allows all UN members to vote and there is no veto in the General Assembly, this is an opportunity for the world community to clearly express its opposition to Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine.

The United Nations General Assembly voted 124-14 on Wednesday to strip Israel of the right to self-defense in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.

The test of the resolution was based on the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion in July that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory was illegal.

The resolution also calls on member states not to sell arms or military equipment to Israel that would be used in Gaza, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem.

Among the 43 countries that abstained were Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Some 12 of the 27 European Union countries abstained, including Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden.

Explosions apparently targeting walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah have killed at least nine people and wounded at least 300 in cities across Lebanon, a day after more than 2,800 were injured and 12 killed by exploding pagers in an attack blamed on Israel.

A source in Hezbollah confirmed that walkie-talkies used by the group were targeted in the attack. A senior security source said the individual explosions were “small in size”, similar to Tuesday’s attacks.

Several solar power systems exploded in people’s homes across Lebanon, according to the National News Agency, injuring at least one girl in the town of al-Zahrani, south Lebanon. Pictures of exploded solar panels, fingerprint readers and other devices circulated social media, though it was unclear whether they blew up by themselves or were near walkie-talkies that exploded.

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding that Israel comply with the ruling of the UN court and withdraw from the occupied territory of Palestine.

The resolution received 124 votes in favor, while 43 countries abstained and Israel, the United States and 12 others voted no.

From New York, Munir Akram, Pakistan’s representative to the United Nations, began reporting back cables highlighting “sarcastic” comments from his Chinese counterpart, who openly tweaked Akram about Pakistan’s sudden swing toward Washington. In private conversations with their Pakistani counterparts over the past year, as reported by Pakistani diplomats, Chinese officials have expressed displeasure with Islamabad for “switching camps”—rather than merely seeking open relations with both countries.

Now, with their U.S. gamble failing to pay off, Pakistani officials have become increasingly frantic in their efforts to repair relations with China, including, as the documents reveal, by granting China approval for a military base at the port of Gwadar—a major and longstanding strategic demand of Beijing—and authorizing joint military operations inside Pakistan.

Worsening relations with China may have been a price the Pakistani military was willing to pay for the benefit of closer ties with the U.S., but those closer ties do not appear to have provided much in the way of benefit. One of the expected upsides for the government of its turn back toward the West was securing an IMF bailout loan worth $7 billion. As of early September 2024, the Pakistani government has been unable to secure the IMF’s requirements for extending the loan.

The Houthi official’s remarks came a day after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen reached central Israel for the first time, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the rebel group.

“There is always communication after every operation we conduct,” Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi movement’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV. “These calls are based on either threats or presenting some temptations, but they have given up to achieve any accomplishment in that direction.”

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the remarks “a total fabrication.”

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AR924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.

Independent cybersecurity experts who have studied footage of the attacks said it was clear that the strength and speed of the explosions were caused by a type of explosive material.

As we hear about the pagers in Lebanon that injured more than 2,700 people today, a reminder that one of the things that came out of the Ed Snowden leaks is that the NSA intercepts packages en route to customers to install malware and surveillance devices.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20416864

Sept. 17, 2024Updated 9:31 p.m. ET

article will receive updates

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20420123

Khaled Meshal, one of Hamas’s most senior officials, said in an interview that the militant group expects to play a decisive role in the enclave when the war is over. [also contains some quotes from Israeli military officers]

By Adam Rasgon
Reporting from Doha, Qatar
Sept. 17, 2024

“Had the US not shielded one side time and again, multiple resolutions of this Council would not have been flagrantly rejected and defied,” Chinese Ambassador, Geng Shuang told the UN Security Council on Monday.

Urging the US to “show a responsible attitude”, Geng called on Washington to “use the significant influence it holds over the party, and take tangible actions to push Israel to cease its military operations without delay, as demanded by the Council resolutions, to give the long-suffering Palestinian people a chance to live.”

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has been labeled "antisemite of the Week" by the Jewish watchdog group StopAntisemitism following her arrest at an anti-Israel rally. The group criticized Thunberg for aligning with protesters who oppose Israel, accusing her of turning her activism into a platform for anti-Semitism, the New York Post reported.

"She has sadly transformed her activism into a platform for vile Jew-hatred," the organization said.

Thunberg, 21, was arrested on September 4 while demonstrating with Students Against the Occupation, who called on Copenhagen University to cut ties with Israel, including climate change programs. StopAntisemitism founder Liora Rez condemned Thunberg, accusing her of prioritizing hatred for Israel over environmental activism despite Israel's efforts on climate action.