On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the first Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish citizens, including a teenager with Turkish-US dual citizenship, on board the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara and injuring about 50 other people who were part of the team on the six-ship convoy.

The International Criminal Court says it has launched a preliminary investigation into Israel's deadly attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in 2010 to see if war crimes or crimes against humanity had been committed. - "My office will be conducting a preliminary examination in order to establish whether the criteria for opening an investigation are met," ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement issued on Tuesday. On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the first Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish citizens, including a teenager with Turkish-US dual citizenship, on board the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara and injuring about 50 other people who were part of the team on the six-ship convoy.

Al Qassam website - Ramallah- More than 7 million Palestinian refugees, uprooted from their homes and lands since the Palestinian Nakba (the usurpation of Palestine), are still hoping to return to their homeland, and reject the notion of land swaps.Many of the Palestinian families who fled Palestine still hold keys to their homes after being forced to leave their lands and homes at gunpoint. MP Mona Mansour stressed the right of return for all Palestinian refugees who were forcibly expelled from their historical lands. She confirmed her total rejection of the notion of land swaps, warning of its seriousness on the Palestinian cause. Dr Abdel Sattar Qassem Professor of Political studies confirmed that Nakba anniversary highlights the Palestinian refugees’ adherence to their right of return despite their difficult living conditions in refugee camps. The refugee Ahmed Abu Saada from Jalazoun refugee camp confirmed that the Palestinian right of return will never be compromised. Resistance is the only reliable option to return to our homeland, he stressed.

A gruesome video has emerged on the Internet, showing a foreign-backed militant in Syria cutting out the heart of a Syrian soldier and biting into it. - In the footage posted online on Sunday, a man wearing military gear is seen knife in hand slicing parts of a dead soldier's torso before turning to the camera and putting the heart in his mouth. "I swear we will eat from your hearts and livers…," the man says referring to the Syria government soldiers. Peter Bouckaert of the New York-based Human Rights Watch says the man has been identified as Abu Sakkar, a founder of the militant Farouq Brigade. Abu Sakkar's identity has been confirmed by militant sources in Homs and by images of him in other videos wearing the same black jacket as in the latest clip and with the same rings on his fingers. "The mutilation of the bodies of enemies is a war crime. But the even more serious issue is the very rapid descent into sectarian rhetoric and violence," Bouckaert said.

Russia Today: Video shows Syrian rebel biting into soldier's heart
PressTV: 'FSA reveals true color of terrorism' - Video Press TV has conducted an interview with Webster Griffin Tarpley, author and historian from Washington, about al-Nusra Front terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for carrying out hundreds of acts of terror in the past year.

The tempo of events in Syria has accelerated in recent weeks. The government forces have scored significant battlefield victories over the rebels, and this has provoked a mixture of war provocations and peace offers from the U.S. and its anti-Assad allies.

Israel has given the green light for the construction of a further 300 homes in a West Bank settlement.The number of eviction incidents has risen sharply since a new Israeli government, with even stronger opposition to a 2-state solution, took office in March. And the Israeli defense force are ready to use almost anything to back their governments orders, including special anti-riot measure called 'Skunk'.

Israel established 11 new diplomatic missions worldwide between 2010 and 2012, the country’s Finance Ministry reported. Among them is a diplomatic mission in the Persian Gulf, but officials refuse to disclose its location. The Finance Ministry’s budget for the next year, to be submitted for Cabinet approval this week, has revealed that Israel has created almost a dozen new missions around the world since 2010. The Financial Ministry’s website mentioned Embassies in Ashgabat (Turkmenistan), Wellington (New Zealand), Accra (Ghana), Tirana (Albania) and the Caribbean, as well as consulates in Guangzhou (China), Sao Paolo (Brazil), Munich (Germany) and St. Petersburg (Russia), and a “diplomatic delegate to the Pacific.” The ministry, however, refused to divulge information on a diplomatic mission reportedly set up in the Persian Gulf. “We cannot comment on this matter,” the Foreign Ministry said, as quoted by Haaretz. To date, Israel has no formal diplomatic relations with the Arab Gulf States, comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb: There is no greater distortion of reality than to portray the war in Syria as one fought between two warring sides. There are no two sides inside Syria; there is simply Syria and the enemies of Syria. As such, when we call for a dialogue between “the two sides” we are not referring to the two sides of Syria, or two camps within Syria, as though there were some political or moral parity between them, but to the side that represents the Syrian Arab Republic and the side that represents those who want to destroy it. The fact that some of Syria’s enemies happen to be Syrian does not make them any more representative of one side of Syria than their Arab and American masters. - Yes, the war is taking place on Syrian soil and it does possess characteristics of a civil war, but it remains a war ON Syria and not one between two sides of Syria. To state otherwise is to confer popular legitimacy and sovereignty on those that pursue the destruction of the Syrian state.

Stephen Hawking has been subject to vile abuse targeting his disability after it was announced he is planning to boycott a conference in Israel, hosted by the country's president Shimon Peres. Some of the ugliest responses to the boycott came on social media, with several accusing Hawking's singling out of Israel for boycott as "anti-Semitism" and making distasteful comments about his disability. The celebrated physicist withdrew from the conference, approving a statement in his name distributed by the British Committee for the Universities in Palestine, confirming his withdrawal was for political reasons, and not for health reasons.

Stephen Lendman: Hawking Boycotts Israel

Vandals believed to be Jewish extremists have uprooted dozens of olive trees and scrawled graffiti near a Palestinian village in the southern West Bank, police and witnesses said on Friday.

Palestinian witnesses told AFP that approximately 80 olive trees were uprooted in the village of Al-Tiwana east of Yatta. Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri confirmed that "police received a report about the damaging of some 62 Palestinian-owned olive trees" in the area. She also noted that "slogans such as 'price tag' and 'mutual guarantee' were scrawled nearby." "Price tag" is a euphemism for hate crimes, primarily committed against Palestinians by Israeli extremists. The attacks began in response to Israeli government moves to dismantle unauthorised settler outposts or in retaliation to Palestinians after attacks against settlers, but over the past 18 months have also targeted Christian institutions and even the Israeli military. The perpetrators of such crimes are rarely caught.

Michael Chossudovsky, Head of the Center for Research on Globalization, in Montreal city in Canada, stressed that the Pentagon has trained terrorists to use chemical weapons in Syria. - In an interview with Press TV Chossudovsky talked about the Israeli aggression on Syrian sites, saying " The United States was involved in the decision to bomb Syria. This was not strictly an act of aggression on the part of Israel acting on its own. It was an act of aggression, which was approved by the United States, namely the Pentagon as well as NATO. It is an act of aggression and violation of international law." He added that when Secretary of State John Kerry says we need to reach a solution and presents himself as a mediator we are in effect in a dead alley because an aggressor presenting himself as a mediator is a non-sequitur. Chossudovsky pointed out that the CNN just a couple of months ago confirmed that contractors hired by the Pentagon were in fact training the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons, adding, " Now we have a statement by a United Nations Independent Commission, which has confirmed unequivocally, that the terrorists who are backed by the United States and its allies, are in possession of deadly sarin nerve gas, which they are using against the civilian population of Syria."

PressTV: ‘Pentagon contractors trained terrorists to use CWs in Syria’ - Video

Physicist pulls out of conference hosted by president Shimon Peres in protest at treatment of Palestinians.

Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president's conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres's 90th birthday. Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking's approval described it as "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there". Hawking's decision marks another victory in the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israeli academic institutions.

Occupied Palestine | فلسطين:
Professor Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel in solidarity with Palestinians (Updated)

Militants fighting against the Syrian government have abducted a group of UN peacekeepers monitoring the ceasefire line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the detention and called for the peacekeepers' immediate release. They were detained as they patrolled close to an area where 21 Filipino observers were held for three days in March. Syria's two-year uprising has increasingly seeped into sensitive frontiers, threatening to draw other countries closer to a conflict that has already killed more than 70,000 people in Syria. U.N. spokeswoman Josephine Guerrero said the peacekeepers were taken at Position 86, near the southern end of the narrow "area of separation" between Syrian and Israeli forces.

Israeli Cabinet ministers backed a draft law to demolish Bedouin villages in the country's Negev Desert and move its residents to government-approved settlements in the area. If adopted by the Knesset, it will affect tens of thousands of Bedouins. Bedouin leaders have harshly criticized the plan, saying they were not included in discussions of the bill. Under the Prawer-Begin plan, or 'The Bill on the Arrangement of Bedouin Houses in the Negev,' the Bedouin population will be relocated to officially recognized Bedouin towns such as Rahat, Khura and Ksayfe, and their current homes will be demolished.

Human rights lawyer Heba Masaleha said one of the Palestinian children detained in an Israeli jail tried to commit suicide as a result of the severe depression he suffers from because of his exposure to maltreatment at the hands of jailers. - Masaleha refrained from mentioning the name of the child, but she said she visited him in jail. She stated that the child has been staying in bed for three days without moving or talking to anyone, except about his intention to commit suicide, adding that the child cannot sleep properly at night and already refused to eat food for two days. [...] The center said that the children were on their way to a Palestinian folkloric festival that was held in the West Bank in solidarity with prisoner Samer Issawi, who ended his months-long hunger strike recently after a deal with his jailers. The center underlined that the Israeli occupation regime deliberately kidnap Palestinian children to break their spirits in violation of the international law, which stipulates the need for protecting the children and their right to grow safely without any restrictions on their freedom. It noted that there are about 321 children, 30 of them patients, in Israeli jails.

Iran's foreign minister says it is Syria's Arab neighbors - not Tehran - who should respond to Israel's recent airstrikes near Damascus. - Ali Akbar Salehi says Arab nations "must stand by their brethren in Damascus." He also warned of "serious repercussions from a political vacuum" should President Bashar Assad's regime collapse. Salehi spoke to reporters during a visit to the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Tuesday. He said he believes Israel "would not dare strike" at suspected Iranian nuclear sites but that his country is "prepared for the worst." Over the weekend, Israeli warplanes targeted what Israel claimed were caches of Iranian missiles bound for the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. Syrian activists said Sunday's airstrike on a sprawling military complex near Damascus killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers.

The Daily Star: Turkey PM says Israeli air strikes on Syria 'unacceptable'

Britain and its European allies help Zionist regime’s settlements in the occupied West Bank sustain and flourish through buying products produced by settlers. The UK government - on the one hand - condemns settlements as illegal as a majority of EU nations do and on the other they continue to buy products made in the occupied Palestinian territories and thus help sustain those illegal settlements.

■ “Settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace, and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible”, said EU High Representative Catherine Ashton in one of many statements made by the EU and its spokespeople over the years on Sept. 27, 2010 in connection with Middle East peace talks. This position is clear and has been consistently upheld. The West Bank colonies were established in violation of Article 49 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, intended to protect civilians in time of war, including when they fall under foreign occupation. The EU maintains that the Geneva Convention provisions continue to apply to the territories Israel occupied in 1967, despite the long duration of the continuing occupation. Opposition to the Israeli settlements should, at the very least, mean doing everything possible to discourage the creation of new settlements, and doing nothing that might serve to legitimize and entrench those that already exist.
■ Yet a recent report indicates that the EU states are importing goods from the settlements, and thereby reinforcing them economically. Moreover, these imports far exceed those from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip-by 15 times. For Israeli settlers living in the occupied territory, this means the EU imports over 100 times more per settler than per Palestinian.”

Justin Raimondo: Israel bombs Damascus – and the cat is out of the bag - It’s seems counterintuitive, to say the least. Indeed, it seems quite mad. And yet we now have all the evidence we need to point to a de facto Israeli alliance with Al Qaeda. The bombing of Damascus suburbs by Israeli jets – purportedly in order to prevent the Syrians from supplying Hezbollah with long range missiles – at precisely the moment when the Syrian “rebels” are demanding Western intervention on their behalf highlights one of the most bizarre alliances in history. Bizarre, yes, but inexplicable? Not at all.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says Israel’s acts of aggression against Syria will not go unanswered and Tel Aviv will receive a “crushing response.” - Mehmanparast on Sunday called for vigilance against Israeli plots to create instability in the region, adding, however, that “oppression and crime in the region will not endure,” Fars News Agency reported. “The Zionist regime must realize that the atrocities it committed in Syria will not go unanswered and it must await a crushing response.” Referring to Israel’s recent military aggression and targeting of Syria’s scientific centers, the Iranian official said Tel Aviv is trying to weaken the country’s defense and undermine its progress.

PressTV: China blasts Israeli attacks on Syria amid Netanyahu visit
Russia Today: 'Israel's aggression opens door to all possibilities' - Syrian Information Minister
Fars News Agency: Senior Commander Rejects Israeli Claims about Targeting Iranian Missiles in Syria
Russia Today: ‘Israel used depleted uranium shells in air strike’ – Syrian source
RIA Novosti: Israel Closes Airspace to Civilian Air Traffic in North

The US feigns disassociation with Hitlerian act of Israeli aggression - as was planned since 2007. Unprovoked, Israel has attacked Syria numerous times over the past 2 days, including attacks on the Syrian capital of Damascus, in what appears to be a series of intentional provocations designed to drag the region into a wider conflict its US sponsors can then enter militarily. Neither attacked directly by Syria, nor able to cite credible evidence in regards to perceived threats Israel claims to be reacting to, the assault on Syria represents a Chapter VII breach of the United Nations Charter. What's more, is that while the US feigns disassociation with Israel's breach of international peace, after jointly fueling a genocidal sectarian conflict within Syria's borders for the past two years, it is documented fact that the US and Saudi Arabia planned to use Israel to conduct military attacks against Iran and Syria, they themselves could not justify politically, legally, or strategically.