The Israeli army awaits the improvement of weather conditions to resume its assassinations operations targeted at leaders and activists affiliated with Hamas military wing. In a report published by the Hebrew version of Ynet Monday, a military commentator, Ron Bin Yeshay, said that the resumption of assassinations comes in an effort to excursive deterrence in confronting Palestinian factions two years after the bloody war launched on the Gaza Strip.

Bin Yeshay, indicated that the decision to take these operations to the next level was made recently in a small ministerial meeting presided over by Benjamin Netanyahu. Also at the meeting were leaders of Israel's security organs. Netanyahu reportedly was reserved over the idea of launching a full-fledged military operation.

AWIP: Olmert says Gaza war "inevitable" - "If there's one thing I regret -- it's that we didn't finish the job back then -- we cannot avoid the need to complete the job," Olmert said on Wednesday, referring to the Gaza war while he was in office. "Israel cannot accept the presence of a terror entity in Gaza, which threatens the citizens of Israel, without taking action. Not random action, but controlled, precise and organized action with enough force to bring a change to the reality in Gaza," Olmert was quoted as saying by Ynetnews.

During Operation Cast Lead Israel committed massive war crimes for all the world to see. Among these crimes the use of White Phosphorus in densely populated areas, use of Depleted Uranium, bombing civilian targets of all sorts without military necessity, destroying civilian infrastructure with no military justification and the infamous massacre of the Samouni family... among many other crimes.

In the aftermath of Cast Lead, Justice Richard Goldstone, a Zionist Jew, was commissioned by the United Nations to write a report on the alleged war crimes. Although the report did not go nearly far enough in exposing the brutality of all the crimes committed, crimes committed by the fourth largest military in the world against a essentially defenceless and captive population, it did allege that Israel (and Hamas) was almost undoubtedly guilty of war crimes and possibly, crimes against humanity.

But on April 1st, 2011 Justice Goldstone had an apparent change of heart and effectively said that he was wrong. With regard to the Samouni family he said, Israel simply made a mistake. It seems that the world in which we live in, a world of impunity for the favoured Israeli state, is set to continue. Unless of course we the people decide enough is enough. -- Ken O'Keefe [Ken O'Keefe's Blog] [Samouni Family Community Centre & Classroom]

Gilad Atzmon: Goldstone’s U-Turn
Sami Moubayed: Goldstone now praises Israel
Stephen Lendman: Richard Goldstone's Fall from Grace
Stephen Lendman: Revisiting Israel's Terror War on Gaza
Celine Hagbard: Goldstone Flip-flops After Talk With Racist Zionists
AWIP: Goldstone backtracks: Regrets Saying Israel Intentionally Killed Gazans

In Reversal, Alleged 9/11 Plotter to Be Tried by Military Tribunal [Actual Perpetrators Go Free, Made Trillions on 'War on Terror'] 04 Apr 2011 In a major reversal, the Obama administration has decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for his [alleged] role in the attacks of Sept. 11 before a military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and not in a civilian courtroom. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected to announce on Monday afternoon that Mr. Mohammed, the self-described [after being waterboarded 183 times] mastermind of the attacks, and four other accused conspirators will face charges before a panel of military officers, a law enforcement official said. [Oh, NORAD took orders from Osama bin Laden? Because NORAD was given the command to *stand down* on 9/11. So either 9/11 was an inside job or NORAD took orders from Osama bin Laden. Let's get the trials underway for the *actual* perpetrators AND benefactors of 9/11 - the Bush cabal, including 'Lucky Larry' Silverstein. --LRP]

This summer it will be musical chairs among President Barack Obama’s national security team. Leon Panetta, the CIA Director, is widely tipped to take over from Bob Gates as Pentagon chief. General David Petraeus, who is said to be exhausted and eager to leave Afghanistan, is being tipped by NPR as a serious contender for Panetta’s job. According to Tom Ricks Lieutenant General John Allen of the US Marine Corps, a Gertrude Bell aficionado, will take over from Petraeus as ISAF commander in Kabul.

It wouldn’t be unusual for a military officer to take over at Langley but Petraeus – known to some as King David – has no specialist intelligence background, though he’s certainly spent plenty of time as an intelligence consumer. The possible move shows that the Obama administration is having a hard time finding a slot for the general, once considered a potential 2012 nominee for Republicans.

Yet another incident of a member of Afghanistan’s security forces going rogue was reported Monday, when a border policeman shot and killed two US soldiers before fleeing the scene. There is no indication that he has been located since. The US patrol was at the Afghan border police base in Faryab Province investigating the new recruits when the attack occurred. Officials did not say if the attacker was one of the new recruits, nor if he was working for any particular militant faction. Reports have been around for years that the Taliban has been ambitious in trying to infiltrate the police nationwide, and defections are fairly common. NATO has been struggling to train a massive police force and military in Afghanistan, but is losing many of them to attrition, either from danger or from Taliban recruitment efforts.

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Jenin Freedom Theater Director Juliano Mer-Khamis will be buried on Wednesday, in Kibbutz Ramot Menashe, following three funeral processions in Haifa, Jenin and Ramallah on Tuesday morning. Hours after the artist was gunned down in his car outside of the theater in the Jenin refugee camp, some 50 Palestinian artists and actors gathered in Ramallah's central square to protest against the killing. They held up signs saying Mer-Khamis's murder was "a loss for Palestine." Theater students released a statement on Tuesday morning, saying "Juliano, your mother’s children have passed away, your mother Arna has passed away and so did you - but your children are going to stay, following your path on the way to the freedom battle, and we will go on with your revolution’s promise, the Jasmine revolution. "The Revolutionary message will not pass away.

+972: Activist, actor, director Juliano Mer Khamis assassinated in West Bank
Gilad Atzmon/AWIP: Juliano Mer-Khamis was murdered today in Jenin

Bombardement du camp d'akouédo à Abidjan le 4 avril 2011 par les hélicoptères MI-24 de l'ONU et de la force Licorne française.
Bombardment of the camp in Abidjan Akouédo April 4, 2011 by MI-24 helicopters of the UN and French Licorne forces.
El bombardeo del campamento en Abidján Akouedo 04 de abril 2011 por el MI-24 helicópteros de la ONU y las fuerzas francesas Licorne. A Abidjan Côte d'Ivoire, Ivory coast, costa de marfil.

Yahoo: U.N. helicopters fire on Gbagbo army camp: witnesses
The Telegraph: Gbagbo's troops 'lay down weapons' [Ivory Coast: live]

The regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, which continues to enjoy the support of the Obama administration and other Western powers, carried out another massacre of anti-government demonstrators Monday, in the southwestern city of Taiz. The exact number of the dead is unknown, as police reportedly removed some of the bodies in their vehicles, but the head of a makeshift hospital in the city’s center told Agence France-Presse that at least 17 people were killed and dozens wounded when police and military opened fire on tens of thousands of protesters. Other sources indicated that 30 people remained in critical condition. Monday’s incident was the worst atrocity carried out by the Saleh regime since the murder of at least 52 demonstrators in the capital city of Sanaa on March 18.

Jason Ditz: At Least 17 Killed in Yemen Crackdown

Manama regime and Saudi-led forces in Bahrain remove the body organs of those killed in anti-government protests, a political observer says. “The bodies of the youths, who are being taken out of hospitals and killed, are being returned to their families with their organs missing,” Ralph Schoenman, the author of The Hiddedn History of Zionism told Press TV. “That's a replica of what the Israeli armed forces were doing in Gaza and other place with Palestinian prisoners - marketing their organs,” he pointed out.

PressTV: New Bahraini repressions revealed

Israeli soldiers have shot dead one Palestinian and wounded another in the northern Gaza Strip near the Erez border crossing. The troops targeted the Palestinians while they were collecting gravel in the area, a Press TV correspondent quoted witnesses as saying. Medics also said that “The ambulance service was being prevented from reaching them.” The Israeli army also confirmed that its forces opened fire at “someone in the northern Gaza Strip." Israeli troops often fire on Palestinians in the area along the Gaza border and locals risk injury or death along the border. Early Saturday, an Israeli airstrike killed at least three Palestinians and injured one in the south of the Gaza Strip.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — U.N. and French helicopters attacked Laurent Gbagbo's last strongholds in Abidjan on Monday as forces loyal to Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara streamed into the city in a "final assault." Explosions and gunfire rang out from the direction of the presidential palace, the state broadcaster RTI, and one of two bridges connecting the lagoon-side city to the airport — among the last strategic footholds held by the incumbent leader who has refused to step down since a November election. Attack helicopters commanded by the United Nations mission in the West African country fired missiles at Gbagbo's military bases, and near his official residence, causing huge explosions that shook nearby homes and smashed windows, witnesses said.

The appeals of three Guantánamo detainees are among the first dealing with this issue to emerge from the Washington federal appeals court. The Supreme Court refused the cases without comment. The US Supreme Court refused on Monday to take up three cases examining whether the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has struck the proper balance while deciding whether terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay are being lawfully detained or must be released. The action, announced without comment, is a victory for government lawyers and the Obama administration, which has aggressively sought to limit the rights and protections available to Guantánamo detainees. At the same time, the high-court action is a major setback for many detainees at Guantánamo and the small army of volunteer lawyers who have worked for years to expand the rights and protections of detainees.

Though they don’t want you to know about it, the billionaire Koch brothers are bankrolling a massive campaign to roll back progressive achievements, and today, labor, civil rights, and climate activists turned out at dozens of rallies across the country to demonstrate against the Koch’s secretive influence in American politics and to stand up for labor and civil rights.

In Washington, D.C. today an estimated 2,000 protesters marched on Koch Industries’ Washington D.C. offices and attempted to give Charles and David Koch an invitation to come out and speak with the protesters. Not surprisingly, the building’s doors were locked and no one was allowed inside. However, a representative from the real estate company which managed the building told an handful of organizers who attempted to deliver the invitation, “I’d be here with you guys if I wasn’t working right now.” Noting that he works for the building, not Koch, he said, “I don’t want to be here.”