Bombing
Exclusive: bank locks customer’s account after donation to UNRWA
Woman grilled minutes after payment to UN body defunded by US and UK after Israeli smears
A UK bank locked its customer’s account – and subjected her to a security grilling – minutes after she made a donation to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that provides a lifeline to suffering Palestinians in Gaza.
The Sunak and Biden governments have stopped providing funds to the vital agency after Israel made what appear to be unevidenced claims that some of its employees took part in the 7 October raid. Israel’s record of lies about events in Gaza – and its now-clear slaughter of many, perhaps most, of the Israeli victims on the day of the raid – means that any allegations should be treated with extreme suspicion unless thoroughly proven. Israel has also murdered dozens of UN employees as well as well over a hundred journalists.
The woman, who has asked not to be named, said:
I’ve been with my bank for at least twenty years. Today, two minutes after donating a fiver to UNRWA, I received a security call and they had blocked my card.
Skwawkbox understands that the account was later unblocked, but if this incident is not a one-off, UK banks may be helping the government enforce its decision to cut off UNRWA and the desperate Palestinians who depend on it – a move that many analysts believe is a measure to accelerate the slaughter in Gaza before Israel has to report back to the International Court of Justice on its compliance, or gaping lack of compliance, with the court’s orders to stop and prevent genocide of the Palestinians.
Update – this appears not to be an isolated incident:
I'm receiving multiple reports that British banks are blocking querying and otherwise disrupting their customers legitimate personal donations to @UNRWA A United Nations Agency! What a country we are rapidly becoming… #Gaza
— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) January 29, 2024
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Starmer STILL silent on ICJ genocide judgment against Israel
Friend of war crimes just ignoring damning order against murderous regime
‘What judgment?’: Keir Starmer
Keir Starmer’s reaction to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) damning judgment yesterday, which put Israel formally on trial for genocide – with even the Israeli judge agreeing on two of the points – and ordered the occupier regime to stop killing Palestinians in Gaza and take a list of measures to protect them, has been deafening silence.
Starmer, who has previously declared himself an unconditional Zionist, has supported Israel’s ‘right’ to commit war crimes and has helped the Tories (blue version) to defeat parliamentary efforts to call for a ceasefire. And as Israel ranted and raved and most of the world applauded South Africa’s stand for humanity and against mass murder, Starmer’s social media account hasn’t even acknowledged the existence of the court’s findings, some thirty hours after they were announced.
But he has found time, as Israel continued to slaughter and maim hundreds of civilian women and children, to tweet about Holocaust Memorial Day and blether repeatedly about anti-social behaviour (especially in ‘hotpots’):
Starmer’s latest nauseating post is a claim that it is a ‘privilege to reaffirm Labour’s commitment to “Never Again”’ – clearly that should end with ‘unless you’re Palestinian’. Coward and genocide enabler.
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Ignore Israel’s spin: ICJ HAS ordered a ceasefire – and much more than a ceasefire
Desperate damage control by genocidal regime can’t hide the facts – the ICJ has gone well beyond a mere ceasefire: Israel has been ordered to protect Palestinians in Gaza, not just stop shooting at them
In the wake of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) historic verdict that officially put Israel on trial for genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s spin doctors, apologists and mouthpieces have desperately been trying to spin the court’s crushing judgment as some kind of victory on the basis that the ICJ did not ‘order a ceasefire’.
Unfortunately, some supporters of Palestine have fallen into the trap – but in fact, the ICJ went way beyond merely ordering a ceasefire. As the president of the court announced, Israel has not just been ordered to stop shooting at and bombing Palestinians.
It has been explicitly ordered to protect them by preventing anyone killing them, inflicting psychological harm on them, preventing reproduction or any other means:
A ceasefire is an agreement to cease hostilities between two countries engaged in a war – in a genocide, the murderous party is ordered to stop the genocide, but the court went further and told Israel it must prevent the killing of Palestinians, as well as pursue any who try to do so and to ensure evidence of such war crimes is not destroyed, as Israel has routinely been doing.
Craig Mokhiber, who resigned as a UN genocide expert last autumn because the UN was failing to prevent Israel’s ‘textbook genocide’ against the people of Gaza, agreed in an interview on Friday night:
Of course Israel will ignore the ruling and the orders that come with it – decades of impunity have instilled such an arrogant sense of entitlement in Israeli politicians that they will flout the ruling. But – vitally – Israel’s backers and enablers are now explicitly breaking international law every single time they provide materials, funding or practical assistance, or political cover, for Israel’s mass murder. And in a month, Israel has to come back to the court and detail its compliance or lack of compliance with the court’s order.
And every country that wishes to uphold international law will be able, and even obliged, to use their own jurisdiction – granted to them by the ruling – to issue warrants for the arrest of anyone committing or complicit in the genocide, in addition to the vast political damage those complicit, criminal regimes will be doing to themselves.
And the UN General Assembly, if Israel and its backers flout the ruling, will be entitled to remove Israel from the UN community of nations and even to refuse to recognise Israeli passports, as was done to apartheid South Africa.
The extent to which this damages Israel and its international standing can be seen in the outraged, petty, desperate and clearly coordinated reaction of its mouthpieces.
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Uni ‘urgently investigating’ pro-Israel professor who told Greenstein ‘all Jews should be gassed’
Justin Stebbing says he was clearly speaking ironically in attack on left-wing, pro-Palestinian Jew Tony Greenstein – but went on to say Greenstein would have been ‘thrilled’ to murder all Jews during WWII
A professor at Imperial College is being ‘urgently’ investigated by the university after sending emails to left-wing Jewish pro-Palestinian activist Tony Greenstein about ‘gas[sing] all Jews.
Greenstein is a Brighton-based human rights campaigner who received a suspended sentence last year in a farcical trial for criminal damage to an Israeli-owned weapons factor when no damage occurred and who has been further targeted by anti-terror police for saying he supports the struggle of Gazans for freedom. He told Skwawkbox that he didn’t know who Stebbing was when he first received an email, from a personal email address, linking to discredited claims of mass rape and mutilation by Hamas and saying that Stebbing ‘agree[d] with you [Jews] should all be gassed‘.
Greenstein reported the incident to police as hate speech, but then realised Stebbing is an academic and, assuming his email had been hacked, contacted him on his university address to let him know. Greenstein said he was astonished when Stebbing wrote back – from his official email – to attack him further.
Stebbing retorted that he was being ‘ironic’ when he made his comment – but claimed that Greenstein would have been ‘thrilled to gas all Jews’ if he had been alive during the Second World War:
“My e mail was pure irony, but as always here the response to the crime is blamed. I have zero doubt that in WW2, you ,would have been thrilled to gas all Jews. That was the point I was making.”
The email headers showed that the email was genuinely from an Imperial email account. Greenstein accordingly sent a complaint to the university, which received an email acknowledgment.
Skwawkbox contacted Prof Stebbing about his emails to Greenstein. He responded:
The reason I wrote to Tony Greenstein was him contacting several senior colleagues accusing them of being doctors for genocide. He was of course aware he had just written that e mail and would and should have understood my e mail as being ironic in that context. We have had previous contact. Tony Greenstein knew that he’d written that so would have understood the context and this affects the meaning of what I wrote and it was clear, as I’d said, I was being ironic.
On Stebbing’s allegation that Greenstein had previous contact with him, Greenstein said:
They were doctors opposing a BMA statement calling for a ceasefire and accusing Israel of having broken international law including his colleague at Imperial. Yes I accused them of being Doctors 4 Genocide. There was an article in the Jewish Chronicle (see below) naming them. However Stebbing wasn’t named and I didn’t contact him. So it’s a lie that we have had previous contact. I’ve searched my email and his name doesn’t come up and it’s an unusual name so I would see immediately.
All these doctors say they have resigned from the BMA which is a good thing. Good riddance as Ghada Karmi said.
He added:
I emailed Stebbing to let him know that someone was clearly impersonating him. You could have blown me down with a feather when he responded saying that I was wrong. He wasn’t being impersonated. It was him. An ultra Zionist lunatic.
An Imperial College spokesperson told Skwawkbox that it was ‘urgently investigating this case involving a Visiting Professor’:
There is no place for antisemitic or hateful behaviour of any kind at Imperial. We are urgently investigating this case involving a Visiting Professor.
The International Court of Justice is expected to give a decision on South Africa’s application under the Genocide Convention for an order to Israel to stop its slaughter, which has killed and maimed more than a hundred thousand Palestinians, mostly women and children, as well as 117 journalists and more than 150 United Nations staff.
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Independents select Palestinian Leanne Mohamad to stand against Streeting
Mohamad wins democratic vote among Redbridge Community Action Group members
Redbridge Community Action Group (RCAG) has selected local Palestinian woman Leanne Mohamad to stand against arch-Labour right-winger Wes Streeting in Ilford North at the next parliamentary election. Ms Mohamad won selection among three potential candidates, by a vote of RACG members.
One local member, Muhammad Rehan Saeed, said:
We have voted a Palestinian woman to take on Wes Streeting and Labour at the next election in Ilford North. A fitting choice to stand against the genocide supporters.
Labour is in disarray in Redbridge – which covers Ilford North and Ilford South constituencies – with the Independents now the largest opposition group, after two landslide by-election wins and a resignation. Streeting, one of Keir Starmer’s main mouthpieces for his support for Israel’s genocide and other war crimes in Gaza. With neighbouring Tower Hamlets already run by Lutfur Rahman’s Aspire party after a landslide in the last council and mayoral elections and Newham Independents romping home in recent by-elections and scheduled elections, Labour and Streeting, who has been the target of protests and boycotts by outraged locals for his Gaza weaseling, have cause to be worried.
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Parliament to reconvene to approve UK airstrikes on Yemen
As world unites in horror at Israel’s genocide, UK Establishment reaction is to protect Israel and billionaires by attacking country taking action for Palestinians
UDPATE: The UK is bombing Yemen tonight, without bothering to have Parliament approve it – and will recall MPs tomorrow to rubber stamp it. The UK is not at war with Yemen but is acting as a rogue state to protect Israel from the economic impact of the shipping interceptions.
The government is reconvening Parliament to push through a vote to approve airstrikes against Yemen, because of Yemen’s success in intercepting Israel-bound shipping to put pressure on Israel to end its genocide. The disruption to seaborne trade is said to be having a significant impact on the Israeli economy.
Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has been taken to a Whitehall briefing tonight and is expected to recall MPs from their usual Friday activities away from Westminster to vote through the attacks – of course, ‘opposition’ leader and ‘Zionist without qualification’ Keir Starmer is fully expected to vote with the Tories.
With most of the world united in horror at the ICJ evidence of Israel’s genocide and war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the UK Establishment reaction, always ready to side with the oppressor against the oppressed, is to protect Israel and billionaires by attacking a country to help Palestinians, regardless of the likely consequences of igniting a regional war.
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Netanyahu ‘changes tune’ about ethnic cleansing on eve of ICJ genocide hearing
Israeli PM broadcasts ‘clarification’ – but only in English
Far-right Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has suddenly – for the first time – said that he doesn’t want to drive Palestinians out of Gaza. Previously, Netanyahu has described Gazans as ‘Amalek’, a reference to a biblical nation that the Israelites destroyed down to the last person, while his ministers have talked in various ways about the destruction, flattening, ‘voluntary’ transfer and even nuclear bombing of Gaza’s population – and his ambassador to the UK has spoken of the complete destruction of Gaza as the only ‘solution’.
The change comes on the evening before Israel faces South Africa’s genocide accusations in the International Court of Justice:
Netanyahu repeated the ridiculous claim that Israel – which has murdered more than 30,000 civilians, more than two thirds of them women and children, and maimed almost sixty thousand others – is doing all it can to minimise civilian casualties an that its orders driving Palestinians out of northern Gaza to be bombed in the south is somehow humanitarian.
They lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and . . .#NetanyahuIsAwarCriminalhttps://t.co/OPwAC5KyXu
— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) January 10, 2024
Israel appears to be seriously worried about the outcome of the ICJ case. Netanyahu, who faced corruption charges before again becoming PM, looks personally worried too. But no statement or change of tune can mask Israel’s genocidal intent in its mass murder of women and children and its bombing of schools, hospitals and homes, or hide the direct violence and the deprivation of food, water, fuel and medicines that threaten to kill far more innocent Palestinian civilians than the bombs and bullets.
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Israeli families demand investigation as truth about mass ‘friendly fire’ deaths starts to percolate
‘Immense’ Israeli death toll from IDF shells, missiles and bullets is already on record – now Israeli families demand immediate investigation
Furious Israeli families have demanded an immediate investigation into the deaths of their loved ones caused by Israeli military fire during the 7 October Hamas raid.
The fact of ‘immense’ deaths to so-called ‘friendly fire’ has already been very quietly admitted by the IDF and reported by Israeli media, but has been ignored by western ‘mainstream’ media – including the UK’s – and have been slow to percolate into the awareness of ordinary Israelis, but the evidence is overwhelming that many and probably most of those killed during that day were killed by IDF weapons, fired either in panic and incompetence or as part of the military’s ‘Hannibal directive‘ to kill potential captives rather than allow them to be taken.
Ynet’s report of the IDF’s claim it would be wrong to investigate deaths because the number of deaths is ‘immense’
But awareness and outrage appear to be growing. Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that:
Family members of Israelis who were killed on October 7 after a standoff between Hamas terrorists and the Israeli army led to the army firing a tank at a house where the civilians were held hostage are demanding that the military probe its actions that day.
According to the paper, the families are insisting that the investigation take place right now and not, as the regime has proposed, after the ‘war’.
As journalist Jonathan Cook noted:
Their concerns have been heightened by the recent admission from an Israeli commander that he ordered a tank to fire a shell into a house where 14 Israelis had been taken hostage by Hamas in Be’eri. Many of those hostages were incinerated by the shell, along with the Hamas fighters. Nonetheless, Israel cited the charred bodies as proof of Hamas’ barbarity, and justification for its subsequent genocidal campaign in Gaza – rather than as evidence of its own scorched-earth policy, one indifferent to the lives of its own civilians.
Similarly, the incinerated bodies of Israelis found in cars at a rave near the kibbutz and near the Gaza border were caused by weapons that Hamas does not have – and released hostages have testified that they were protected and treated well by Hamas fighters but were fired on by Israeli helicopters and plans as their captors took them across the border, killing many.
So intense was this firestorm that for weeks the Israeli regime thought that some two hundred bodies it initially thought were Israelis were in fact Palestinians – and clearly Hamas did not incinerate them. Israeli police have also confirmed that many killed at the rave were in fact shot by Israeli helicopters.
The Israeli mainstream media have in fact been more honest than their UK and US counterparts in reporting these facts. Now that the families are demanding action, will UK papers and broadcasters finally start to cover them? Don’t hold your breath.
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Israel ‘kills several’ in two new attacks on Red Crescent HQ in Khan Younis
Occupier targets humanitarian group – again
Israel has killed ‘several people’ in two separate attacks on the Khan Younis HQ of the International Red Crescent humanitarian organisation in Gaza. The group, the sister organisation in Muslim areas of the International Red Cross, has not yet put a number on how many were killed and injured.
The attacks are the second and third times in just over a week that Israel has targeted the Red Crescent HQ – with the first attack taking place just after Christmas:
The bombings come om the day that the genocidal regime also destroyed buildings and killed civilians in a missile strike in Lebanese capital Beirut, claiming to have targeted a Hamas building to assassinatea single official of the Palestinian resistance group, Saleh Al Arouri, in yet another extra-judicial murder. The attack is likely to trigger retaliatory strikes by Lebanese forces, perhaps in the form of long-range rockets.
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