friendly fire
Relative of Israeli captives confirms ‘3 hostages killed by Israeli fire,’ blasts military
An Israeli whose family members were held by Palestinian militants tells of friendly fire deaths and complains, “We used to think the IDF knows what it’s doing.” Meanwhile, freed captives detail “horrifying captivity trauma” from Israeli bombings. A relative of newly-released Israeli captives has publicly accused the Israeli military of killing its own people and says Tel Aviv is blocking the victims’ families from speaking out. In testimony delivered to Israel’s finance committee on December 3, Noam Dan, whose cousin’s […]
The post Relative of Israeli captives confirms ‘3 hostages killed by Israeli fire,’ blasts military first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Relative of Israeli captives confirms ‘3 hostages killed by Israeli fire,’ blasts military appeared first on The Grayzone.
Israel says it will pursue Gazan Palestinians on Lebanese, Turkish and Qatari territory
Israeli security service director’s threat on Israeli national TV
The director of Israel’s domestic security service, the Shin Bet, has said that the Israeli government intends to pursue Palestinian resistance activists outside Palestine – specifically threatening Turkey and Qatar.
Speaking to Kan, Israel’s national broadcaster, and reported by Israeli paper Haaretz, Ronen Bar compared the 7 October kibbutz raid to the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes, saying:
This is our Munich. Everywhere – in Gaza, in the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, in Turkey, and in Qatar. It will take us a few years, but we will be there to do it… we are drawing our lessons from the events and are already passing them on to other arenas, not just in the Gaza Strip…
the scope of threats facing the State of Israel is unprecedented in the past year, even before these
events. Even in this case, the main thing is hidden from the eye. There are many things brewing beneath the surface.
As well as constituting an open threat to the sovereignty of three nations, Bar’s comments are exposed as a farce by the fact that Israel knew what Hamas was planning at least a year before the kibbutz raid and did nothing – and that a growing mountain of evidence now shows that the bulk of Israeli casualties during the raid were caused by the Israeli military firing on buildings and vehicles that contained Israeli citizens, and at people on foot that pilots and tank commanders did not pause to identify before destroying.
Despite the mounting evidence, UK and western media have refused to cover the fact of Israeli ‘friendly fire’ under the military’s ‘Hannibal doctrine‘, as it would fatally undermine Israel’s attempts to justify its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
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Video: Hotovely claims Mowasi is ‘shelter’ for Gazans – just as footage reveals wasteland
Reality of Israel’s propaganda as it claims 1km-wide strip of land in southern Gaza is a safe haven for Palestinians to justify its bombing of the rest of the south
Far-right Israeli ambassador to the UK Tsipi Hotovely has claimed ‘Mowasi’ is a safe haven for the two million-plus Palestinians it has driven into southern Gaza – telling them it was safe in the south as it bombed thousands into oblivion in the north, flattened most buildings and targeted schools and hospitals.
More than a million were driven into the south – and Israel is bombing them there too. But as its disastrous propaganda efforts collapse around their ears and the truth that Israeli forces killed many of the Israelis who died in the kibbutz raid gains traction, Israeli spin-merchants clearly feel the need to somehow justify the fact that Israel is now driving the Palestinians of Gaza into an even tinier area.
There is no ‘Mowasi’ in Gaza, but there is al-Mawasi – a 1km-wide strip of land hard against the coastline of southern Gaza. But as Hotovely claimed ‘Mowasi’ is a safe place for more than two million people, half of them children, Sky cut to footage of the area – and revealed a wasteland:
Journalist Rami Jarrah, who spotted the Sky clip, went on to expose more of the propaganda – and the tininess of al Mawasi – in a short Twitter thread:
Palestinians are going out of their way to expose Israel’s fabricated safe havens that are just bustling with aid organisations.
Israel wants 2.2 million Gazans to build sand castles in the desert & disturbingly close to the Egyptian border
I wonder why?pic.twitter.com/RuNUa4QiND— Rami Jarrah (@RamiJarrah) December 4, 2023
See this tiny strip labelled 'Humanitarian Zone'?
That's Mowasi, that's where Israel wants 2.2 Million Gazans to fit, with no water, shelter or electricity.
They really mean it when they call Palestinians "Human Animals" pic.twitter.com/ihq4DmAUEM— Rami Jarrah (@RamiJarrah) December 4, 2023
Israeli ministers and advisers have been exposed planning the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, either killing its Palestinian residents or driving them into a new, permanent ‘tent city’ refugee camp in the Egyptian desert. But that is not yet the narrative that Israeli is presenting to the wider world, so ‘Mowasi’ is the interim.
And the farce of the claim has been exposed within seconds, as the gross incompetence of the Israeli propaganda machine came back to bite the apartheid-mongers yet again.
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Video: Israeli soldiers say they shot at kibbutz houses, burned bodies
Propaganda video praising women tankers gives away ‘panic’ of IDF soldiers shooting regardless of civilians
An Israeli propaganda video praising the role of women tankers in fighting Hamas during the 7 October kibbutz raid has confirmed already-existing reports in Israeli media – and admissions by senior government advisers – that many of the deaths among Israeli civilians were caused by Israeli Defence Force (IDF) bullets.
In the excerpt below, women soldiers say that:
- Soldiers at the scene were ‘panicked’ and wanted them to shoot at areas regardless whether there were civilians
- they shot at civilian houses where they could not have known whether there were civilians inside
- that burned bodies – most of whom were later claimed by Israel to be civilians – were killed the IDF and that the tank crews shot the burned bodies again to make sure no one lived
The woman tank commander says, perversely, in one moment that she refused an order to shoot where there might be civilians but two seconds later says that she immediately fired on a kibbutz house:
Israeli survivors of the raid told Israeli media soon afterwards that many if not most of the civilian deaths were caused by IDF fire. The videos were suppressed and never reported by the international ‘mainstream’ media, but are still in circulation.
BREAKING: ISRAELI DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT SAYS HAMAS TOOK CARE OF THE HOSTAGES
Alon Ben David said;
“They were not subjected to torture or ill-treatment. The food was scarce; there wasn't much food.”
He said Hamas tried to provide medications daily, though not always… pic.twitter.com/vdk42hYOsF— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) November 26, 2023
Israeli media reports have said hostages were well treated. UK media have mostly ignored
Former Israeli ambassador to the UK Mark Regev, now a senior Netanyahu adviser, inadvertently admitted that the IDF weapons had been responsible for the hundreds of charred charred Israeli bodies – and that two hundred that Israel had thought were Israelis killed by the IDF were in fact Palestinian. A senior IDF pilot told an interviewer that the ‘Hannibal’ directive to kill Israelis as well as Palestinians to prevent hostage situations – supposedly a policy abandoned years ago – was something he and his colleagues trained in regularly for the last twenty years and that the events at the kibbutzim were a ‘mass Hannibal’.
Israeli soldiers and pilots also told Israeli media that they had destroyed homes with everyone inside, both Israeli and Palestinian. Now a propaganda video, intended to boast about Israeli military courage and to present Israel as progressive, has again confirmed that the IDF fired at people in the kibbutz without differentiating between Israelis and Palestinians and even put bullets into the burned to make sure they were dead – making a sick mockery of the Israeli regime’s claims of savagery used to justify its mass killing of civilians in Gaza.
The full 14-minute video can be viewed here.
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St Andrews uni wavers on new rector’s free speech on Gaza under pressure from pro-Israel lobby
University bemoans Stella Maris’s email calling genocide genocide
New St Andrews Uni rector Stella Maris
St Andrews University in Scotland has caved at least partially in the face of pressure from the pro-Israel lobby after the university’s rector – a position elected by students – sent out an email recognising Israel’s apartheid and its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
According to reports in the Establishment media, a letter of protest was signed by ‘hundreds of students’ – but it appears that this was an open letter signed by 1,400 people, many of whom were probably not students since St Andrews only has 10,119 students registered, may not even have been in the UK and potentially might not even exist, as a university is unlikely to verify the names on the bottom of a letter. Pro-Israel pressure groups are known to coordinate pressure globally via social media – and even their own app – to try to suppress free speech that contradicts the Israeli regime’s narrative.
Maris’s email noted – entirely accurately – that Palestinians had been subjected to
apartheid, siege, illegal occupation and collective punishment
During Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians. She also linked to an article that discussed – again, entirely accurately – the fact that many, perhaps most, of those killed during the 7 October kibbutz raid had been killed by Israeli gunships and artillery, a fact inadvertently confirmed even by a senior Netanyahu adviser and former ambassador to the UK. Israel’s apartheid, ‘textbook genocide’ and other war crimes have been attested to by experts, including senior United Nations officials and human rights groups in Israel and internationally.
The university put out a statement saying it was ‘dismayed’ by Ms Maris’s accurate email and very disappointed that she had exercised her freedom of speech – and said it had offered her ‘support’ to retract her email:
As the senior management team which leads the University of St Andrews, we are utterly dismayed that the rector, on this occasion, put her right to freedom of expression ahead of her duty to represent all students, and to be concerned for their welfare.
We know that while some may have welcomed the message, others have been deeply offended and concerned by it.
While every one of us shares a desire for peace and an end to hostilities in Israel and Gaza, we regret that her message, the language that it used, and some of the sources it cited have caused alarm, division, and harm in our community, and more widely.
While she is accountable only to the student body whose interests she was elected to serve, we have, as individuals and as a group of senior leaders, asked her to reflect seriously on the evidence of the upset and fear she has caused, and to take such action as is necessary to restore confidence in her leadership amongst all students, and the wider community.
We have reached out to the rector to offer such support and help as she may require to address these issues.
The statement should, of course, have noted her right to free speech and then stopped there, but many craven universities are well known to have little spine in the face of pro-Israel groups’ manufactured outrage.
Interestingly, the supposedly outraged letter does not appear to have been circulated publicly online and is only quoted selectively by media outlets – which do not name the ‘group’ that sent it. However, the list of likely ‘usual suspects’ is fairly short.
Supporters of Israeli apartheid and war crimes have expressed their horror at Maris’s accuracy “inflammatory and unfounded accusations of ‘genocide,’ ‘apartheid,’ and ‘occupation’ concerning the Jewish State”, claiming it will foster division and “embolden attacks” on Jewish students.
The letter also condemned Maris for not mentioning recent attacks on two students who were leaving a talk by right-wing Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who has compared marches for Gaza with support for terrorism and has previously said that Israel has ‘no choice’ but to use violence against Gaza. The alleged attackers, who threw eggs, were described by a spokeswoman as around twelve years of age.
Ms Maris told the Telegraph:
While people may disagree with the evidence presented, disagreement should be based on contradictory evidence, not simply because the notion is unpleasant.
Standing with innocents suffering war crimes trumps avoiding offence to supporters of the perpetrators. Every time.
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Video: IDF caught faking ‘attempted Hamas ambush’
‘Prisoner’ seen dragged away in underwear caught putting pants back on after camera supposed to have stopped filming
The IDF’s attempts at propaganda have been as howlingly inept as its bombing of Gazan civilians has been deadly, from being caught planting evidence in Al Shifa hospital, to claiming a chart showed the names of ‘terrorists’ when in fact it showing the days of the week, to claiming a man covered in blood in a hospital CCTV video was an unhurt hostage being hidden in the hospital.
Meanwhile – although ignored by complicit western media – Israel has admitted that its own helicopters and artillery killed large numbers of Israeli citizens whose deaths it blamed on Hamas.
And now the IDF appears to have been caught faking a ‘Hamas ambush’ in which it dragged off a ‘terrorist’ in his underwear – only for the camera to catch the man putting his clothes back on, with no soldiers holding him captive, behind a screen.
The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal first outed the incident and was blocked by the right-wing US reporter who had claimed it was an attempted ambush:
After blocking me for exposing his (possibly unwitting) participation in Israel’s planting evidence at Shifa hospital, Fox’s @TreyYingst stands accused of a hoax standoff. He’s fervently denied it on his IG account. I think more investigation is in order. pic.twitter.com/TMLB17ZNAV
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 24, 2023
Yngst then claimed that a still featured in Blumenthal’s video showed the man getting undressed under IDF guard:
But in the actual footage it is clear that the still was taken after the man was shown being escorted away blindfolded (with media and military cameras conveniently ready to film that part) – and the footage showing him putting his trousers back on appears at the end of the clip apparently because a cloth screen blew upward in the wind, followed by agitated soldiers telling the camera to stop filming:
Israel’s merciless mass killing of children and civilian women and the elderly, combined with its propaganda incompetence and the arrogance of its spokespeople, have led millions to march for peace and justice for Palestinians and to deride the endless propaganda failures that would certainly be fatal to its narrative if the western media reported half of what is revealed by the Israeli press and broadcasters.
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Video: former US Israel adviser arrested after disgusting Islamophobic hate-speech tirades
Stuart Seldowitz’s foul and shameless verbal assaults on street food vendor finally have consequences. He now offers to apologise
Pro-Israel former US government adviser Stuart Seldowitz has been arrested after a shameless and disgusting series of tirades against a Muslim street food vendor.
Seldowitz was filmed – and knew he was being filmed – smiling as he asked the man whether he had raped his daughter, threatened to send details of his family to the Egyptian secret police so they could pull out his father’s fingernails and, appallingly, said that four thousand Palestinian children slaughtered in Gaza wasn’t ‘enough’.
And he went back repeatedly to do it, as videos of him in different outfits show:
Seldowitz was Deputy Director in the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003. It’s not hard to imagine whose side he was on during his ‘service’ – and his lack of hesitation as he was filmed suggests he thought he was above consequences for his racism and actions.
However, while New York Police reportedly originally said they could take no action because he was exercising his freedom of speech, Seldowitz has now been arrested for aggravated racial harassment and four counts of stalking – and in an embarrassing climbdown that his actions suggest has everything to do with avoiding prosecution, has offered to apologise to the man he abused:
Seldowitz’s arrogance is all too typical of the attitude of supporters of Israeli violence and apartheid, who treat scrutiny as antisemitic and even as ‘holocaust denial’.
Israel has slaughtered more than 15,000 civilians, around half of them children, and has bombed schools, hospitals and the homes of doctors and journalists in its campaign to empty Gaza for its own purposes, committing widespread war crimes. Its pretext – that it is ‘defending itself’ after supposed atrocities by Hamas, is falling apart daily as its ‘evidence’ for Hamas’s presence in hospitals is rightly mocked and its admissions continue, unreported by the so-called ‘mainstream’ media in this country, that Israeli forces killed hundreds of their own people on 7 October.
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Israeli police admit rave-goers shot by IDF helicopter
Earlier reports confirmed by police finding
An official Israeli police investigation has confirmed that Israelis attending a rave on 7 October were shot by an Israeli Defence Force (IDF) helicopter – confirming reports from Israeli witnesses, media and security personnel.
According to Haaretz – which had previously condemned those reporting the testimonies of killings by Israeli forces as conspiracy theorists – investigators concluded that a helicopter ‘also hit some festival participants’, but without confirming the number:
According to a police source, the investigation also shows that an IDF combat helicopter that arrived to the scene and fired at terrorists there apparently also hit some festival participants.
Last week, Netanyahu adviser Mark Regev inadvertently admitted that Israeli forces were responsible for at least some of the 7 October deaths were caused by Israeli forces when he said that two hundred of the burned bodies that had been included among the Israeli dead were in fact Hamas fighters – Hamas clearly did not incinerate its own and does not have weapons capable of burning bodies to a crisp in moments.
Israeli survivors of the attack have also told Israeli media that the Hamas operatives were kind and polite but that Israeli forces fired indiscriminately and killed many hostages. A senior Israeli pilot also told Haaretz that the mass killing of Israelis was a ‘mass Hannibal’ – referring to the Israeli doctrine of killing everyone, including Israelis, to prevent a hostage situation. Col Nof Erez said that he and other military pilots had been training for Hannibal responses for the last twenty years – the doctrine was officially abandoned in 2008.
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Video: Israeli reserve colonel says Oct 7 killings were ‘mass Hannibal’ directive by IDF, not Hamas
Israeli media interview supports eyewitness accounts and inadvertent admission by Netanyahu spokesman that Israeli military, not Hamas, responsible for most deaths at Kibbutz Be’eri
A candid interview with a senior Israeli Defence Force (IDF) reserve pilot corroborates reports from eyewitnesses that Israeli forces were responsible for most deaths in the 7 October kibbutz raid – and not Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
The ‘Hannibal directive’, an instruction to the military to kill both hostages and raiders to prevent hostages being taken into captivity, was officially repealed in 2008, but Colonel Nof Erez said that he and his fellow pilots have been practising it for the past twenty years – and that the carnage at Kibbutz Be’eri was a ‘mass Hannibal’, with helicopter gunships shooting indiscriminately at cars leaving the area, without knowing whether they contained hostages or not.
Erez, speaking to Israeli media outlet Haaretz and translated by Asian news magazine The Cradle, said that the absence of any Israeli forces on the ground at the time ruled out any chance of ground coordination of the air assault – meaning that the helicopters would have been shooting at any target that moved:
Speaking with Haaretz, Israeli reserve pilot Col. Nof Erez describes Israeli army's response to Oct. 7 as "MASS HANNIBAL."
The Hannibal Directive orders the army to kill their own to prevent them being taken captive. pic.twitter.com/5IrERAAtVl— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) November 20, 2023
Survivors of the slaughter have said that they were treated well by the Hamas raiders, but that Israeli forces fired indiscriminately – with one eyewitness reporting that her husband had been killed by Israeli bullets – and the kibbutz security head said that houses had been shelled to bring them down on their occupants and kill them and the Hamas fighters.
And last week former Israeli ambassador Mark Regev, now a key Netanyahu adviser, inadvertently admitted that the many charred bodies had been burned by Israeli weapons – as long suspected by military experts and commentators who knew that Hamas does not have weapons that will do it – when he said that two hundred bodies had been thought to be Israeli but were in fact Palestinians.
Western media and politicians remain stubbornly silent on these facts, allowing the Israeli regime to continue to deceive the UK and US public with lurid and entirely unevidenced tales – what has been put forward as supposed evidence has rapidly fallen apart – of rapes and beheadings to justify Israel’s war crimes and mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
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