Yves Smith | On May 8, 2024, as Israel escalated its brutal assault on Rafah, President Biden announced that he had “paused” a delivery of 1,700 500-pound and 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, and threatened to withhold more shipments if Israel went ahead with its full-scale invasion of Rafah. | The move elicited an outcry from Israeli officials (National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted “Hamas loves Biden”), as well as Republicans, staunch anti-Palestinian Democrats and pro-Israel donors. Republicans immediately prepared a bill entitled the Israel Security Assistance Support Act to prohibit the administration from withholding military aid to Israel. ■ Many people have been asking the U.S. to halt weapons to Israel for seven months, and of course Biden’s move comes too late for 35,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza, mainly by American weapons. ■ Lest one think the administration is truly changing its position, two days after announcing the pause, the State Department released a convoluted report saying that, although it is reasonable to “assess” that U.S. weapons have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza in ways that are “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law, and although Israel has indeed delayed or had a negative effect on the delivery of aid to Gaza (which is illegal under U.S. law), Israel’s assurances regarding humanitarian aid and compliance with international humanitarian law are “credible and reliable.” ■ By this absurd conclusion, the Biden administration has given itself a green light to keep sending weapons and Israel a flashing one to keep committing war crimes with them.

Mohammad Al-Jaber | Though there was no indication that he would become a military mastermind, Mohammad Deif grew up like many other Palestinians under the Israeli occupation in conditions that made him the leader he is today. | Mohmmad Deif is a name that is no stranger to headlines and media discussions at a time when he coordinated and dealt what is arguably the most devastating blow to the Israeli occupation since its inception, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, giving hope to the Arab and all the righteous people that "Israel" was not that invincible entity it has proclaimed to be. ■ While picking holes in the Israeli occupation's deterrence has been his profession for decades at this point, little is known about the Resistance leader who has put Hamas at the top of the list of threats to the very existence of the Israeli occupation through his strategic prowess and admirable patience that culminated in the Palestinian cause receiving more worldwide and regional support than it ever has.

■ APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP (ORDER OF 26 JANUARY 2024) (.pdf) + APPLICATION INSTITUTING PROCEEDINGS (.pdf)
■ THE EXPRESSION OF HATRED FOR GENTILES (Richard Edmondson/Nahida Izzat) (10/04/14)

Fiona Lali clashed with Suella Braverman on GB News. | Suella Braverman was involved in a tense clash with a pro-Palestine student who accused the former Home Secretary of being a “war criminal”. Braverman confronted pro-Palestine protesters at a camp in Cambridge earlier in the day with GB News host Patrick Christys. Dismayed by what she had witnessed, Braverman was then challenged in the GB News studio about her comments by National Campaigns Coordinator for the Revolutionary Communist Party, Fiona Lali. Opening up the argument, Lali insisted camps across theShe also boasted that the pro-Palestine movement “brought down” Braverman, and has the power to “bring down the Tory Government”. country are not being set up in response to October 7, the day Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, and it is “disingenuous” to suggest otherwise.

Ansarullah downed a US MQ-9 Reaper drone in Yemen's northeast. | The US drone was downed in the Wadi Ubaidah region in Marib province. Ansarullah's official sources claimed responsibility for downing the US drone. ● Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian Resistance movements carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity. Yemeni Armed Forces have said that they won’t stop their attacks until unrelenting Israeli ground and aerial offensives in Gaza, which have killed at least 27,948 people and wounded another 67,459 individuals, come to an end. ● The United States and Britain in December announced a military coalition to target Yemen in support of Israel.

■ Yemeni air defenses shoot down US MQ-9 drone over Marib: YAF Spox (Al Mayadeen)
■ US spy balloon crashes in northeast Syria (The Cradle)

■ APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP (ORDER OF 26 JANUARY 2024) (.pdf) + APPLICATION INSTITUTING PROCEEDINGS (.pdf)
■ THE EXPRESSION OF HATRED FOR GENTILES (Richard Edmondson/Nahida Izzat) (10/04/14)

Eric Zuesse | "After Israel’s incursion into Rafah this week, the Israeli military shut down the Kerem Shalom crossing and seized the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, stopping the flow of desperately needed food, fuel and medical supplies. Since Sunday, no aid trucks have entered Gaza from either entry point." | The United States is now the only Government that continues to donate weapons to Israel’s Government. The extermination-program is being carried out by the troops, who come from Israel, and by the bombs, bullets, tanks, and planes, which come from America. Though U.S. President Biden has recently threatened to stop supplying this equipment, it still hasn’t happened; and a retired Israeli general said “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” So: this is an Israeli-American genocide of Gazans, even though the genocide case, at least as-of now, is being pursued against only Israel. (Perhaps that’s because America’s Government is untouchable, the most powerful in the world — above any international law, never punishable by any.)

■ Israel Descends Into Barbarism (Lawrence Davidson)

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas’ Political Bureau, has expressed certainty regarding the Israeli regime’s eventual removal from the entirety of the Palestinian territories. | The Hamas’ leader made the remarks in a speech on Wednesday. He was marking the anniversary of Palestinians’ historical exodus from their homeland at the hands of the Israeli regime and its Western backers in 1948, which is known by Palestinians as the day of “Nakba” or Catastrophe.

💬 Israel’s “removal from our land is a Qur'anic inevitability and historical truth,” he asserted. ● “They intended the Nakba to destroy the Palestinian people and end their sacred cause,” Haniyeh said. “Yet, the Palestinian cause remains strong in the consciousness of our people, our nation, and the free people of the world.”

■ 'Nakba never ended, it continues as we see live-streamed in Gaza today' (Syed Zafar Mehdi)
■ The Al-Aqsa Flood Operation Is - Despite All Damage - Effectual (Moon of Alabama)

A senior Iranian commander sounds a note of warning addressed to the UK, Germany, and France after the trio deployed their warplanes to defend the Israeli regime against a retaliatory operation staged by Iran last month.

💬 “All criminals should know [this] that their measures and crimes have been chalked up to their accounts,” Qa’ani said. ● “France, Germany, and the UK should not think that they deployed the planes that night and that the issue was over. Yes, that night was over, but they will be held accountable in due course,” he added.

According to Qa’ani, the United States and the entire Western military alliance of NATO contributed all of their military capabilities towards defending the occupying regime against the Iranian operation. “[Up to] seven to eight naval groups were deployed to the Black Sea to prevent the [Iranian] operation,” he said, adding that more than 200 aircraft were also scrambled across the region’s skies during the night of the operation. ● The commander described the aerial expanse, where the operation was conducted, as “the most condensed spot in the world as far as [the issue of] air defense is concerned,” billing the operation as “unprecedented and historically unachievable.”

Israel's use of #IHL jargon (warnings, evacuation orders, safe zones) is to create the illusion that its military operations ensure protection of civilians. This "humanitarian camouflage" has de facto turned Gaza into a place "without civilians", where everything is detroyable &… https://t.co/12qtYtgvtJ

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 14, 2024

Concern comes as International Court of Justice is set to hold hearings on Thursday and Friday | Israel is worried that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) may order it to cease fighting in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, reports said Tuesday. Its concern comes ahead of public hearings scheduled for Thursday and Friday. ● Earlier in the day, the ICJ announced that it would hold hearings to consider South Africa's request for “additional measures” against Israel. This request is in relation to the case of genocide filed against Israel following the Israeli army's operation in Rafah. ● In response to the court's announcement, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that Israel has not yet decided whether it will participate in the hearings.

■ Erdoğan: Netanyahu and those complicit in genocide will be held accountable (aNews)

The package, which is yet to be approved, includes about $700m for tank ammunition, $500m in tactical vehicles and $60m in mortar rounds, congressional aides told The Associated Press news agency. | The Biden administration has told Congress that it plans to send a $1bn package of military aid to Israel, according to media reports, despite the United States’s opposition to a full-scale invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza and concerns about rising civilian deaths. ● The US Department of State on Tuesday moved the package into the congressional review process, Reuters news agency reported, citing two unnamed US officials. ● The package, which is yet to be approved, includes about $700m for tank ammunition, $500m in tactical vehicles and $60m in mortar rounds, congressional aides told The Associated Press news agency.

■ War on Gaza: US to send $1bn more in weapons, ammo, to Israel despite Rafah tensions

At least 14 Palestinians were killed after the Israeli army conducted an air strike on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
The WAFA news agency has reported that casualties from the air strike include dead children, with many others wounded.
The airstrike hit a three-story… pic.twitter.com/hsv3b2WCGI

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 14, 2024

Israeli warplanes have conducted fresh aerial assaults on the Gaza Strip, killing dozens of civilians, including children, in the besieged Palestinian territory. | Citing medical sources, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported on Tuesday that 14 people lost their lives in overnight Israeli bombing of a three-story house owned by the Karaja family, south of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. ● The report added that children were among those killed in the strike that also injured several more. Other reports updated the death toll to at least 20 people. ● Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Israeli air raids on the Jabalia refugee camp and the city of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. Jabalia residents said Israeli tanks were advancing towards the camp. Civilians are “running in the streets,” a Jabalia resident told Al Jazeera, adding, “We’ve been displaced from one place to the next … we don’t know where to go.”

■ Day 221: 35,173 Palestinians killed, 79,061 injured in Gaza (Al Mayadeen)
■ Gaza under Israeli fire: 220 days of genocide and loss (Al Mayadeen)
■ Israel carpet bombs Gaza with no goal in sight (The Cradle)
■ Gaza civilians voice out their chilling encounters with Israeli torture (TRT World)
■ Tied, diapered, beaten: Israeli insiders reveal severe Palestinian torture (TRT World)
■ Gaza Al-Shifa doctor tortured to death by Israeli forces (Al Mayadeen)

Hundreds of civilians are fleeing under the gunfire as the Israeli occupation army is strenuously trying to invade Jabalia refugee camp, faced by fierce Palestinian resistance. pic.twitter.com/qCd86RzAcD

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 13, 2024

Palestinian prisoners were handcuffed for so long that their limbs died and had to be amputated, three Israeli whistleblowers who spoke to US media revealed, detailing a litany of alleged abuses against prisoners held by Israel in the Sde Teiman military base. | The whistleblowers quoted by The Hill said that the base has two parts, one which includes “intense physical restraint” and the other acting as a field hospital where prisoners are strapped to beds, blindfolded, put in diapers and fed through a tube. ● Prisoners were routinely beaten by guards the whistleblowers say, but the torture wasn’t a part of any kind of interrogation program, according to the news agency. “(The beatings) were not done to gather intelligence. They were done out of revenge,” the whistleblower claimed. “It was punishment for what they did on October 7 and punishment for behavior in the camp.” ● A prisoner from the camp claimed that even talking to another prisoner was enough to earn a beating by Israeli guards. [...] The accusations by the whistleblowers and prisoners match the accusations made in a letter addressed to top Israeli officials by an Israeli doctor who worked at the facility. He described a facility where limb amputations caused by consistent handcuffing were unfortunately “a routine event.”

■ Gaza under Israeli fire: 220 days of genocide and loss (Al Mayadeen)
■ Israel carpet bombs Gaza with no goal in sight (The Cradle)
■ Gaza civilians voice out their chilling encounters with Israeli torture (TRT World)
■ Tied, diapered, beaten: Israeli insiders reveal severe Palestinian torture (TRT World)
■ Gaza Al-Shifa doctor tortured to death by Israeli forces (Al Mayadeen)
■ 3,000+ Palestinians from Gaza detained, tortured in Israeli prisons (04/16/24)
■ Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees, spike in arbitrary arrests (04/13/24)
■ Released Detainees From Israeli Prisons Showed Signs of Torture (03/18/24)
■ Torture, Executions, Babies Left to Die, Sexual Abuse… These Are Israel’s Crimes (03/18/24)
■ Iron bars, electric shocks, dogs and cigarette burns: How Palestinians are tortured in Israeli detention (03/12/24)
■ Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests

Heavy Israeli bombardment of Jabalia refugee camp continues. This video shows the bombardment of the medical personnel and journalists in the camp. pic.twitter.com/HFVEA5Be9B

— Mustafa Barghouti @Mustafa_Barghouti (@MustafaBarghou1) May 12, 2024

US Senator Lindsey Graham says Israel should drop nuclear bombs on Gaza to end the war and do “whatever” it deems necessary in the aggression, drawing a comparison to when the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan during World War II. | Graham, a South Carolina Republican, suggested that Israel would be right to flatten the besieged Gaza Strip simply because the US did it to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and killed more than 200,000 people.

💬 “Why is it OK for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it OK for us to do that? I thought it was OK,” he told NBC News on Sunday, “So, Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive ... Whatever you have to do.”

Graham also urged US President Joe Biden to provide the occupying regime with more bombs. [...] The remarks came days after Biden claimed that he had halted a weapons shipment to Israel and that he might continue to do so if the regime launched a full-scale assault on Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city where 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.

The United Nations Security Council has called for an immediate and independent investigation into reported mass graves containing hundreds of Palestinian dead bodies near hospitals in the Gaza Strip amid the Israeli regime’s months-long aggression on the besieged territory. | In a statement on Friday, the 15-member council expressed their “deep concern over reports of the discovery of mass graves in and around the Nasser and al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza, where several hundred bodies, including women, children and older persons, were buried.” ● The members underlined the need for “accountability” for any Israeli violations of international law and called for “unimpeded access to all locations of mass graves in Gaza to conduct immediate, independent, thorough, comprehensive, transparent and impartial investigations.” ● The statement comes as some 400 bodies have been recovered at the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip while around 300 bodies have been discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

■ IOF commit massacres in Gaza Strip, 18 martyrs in Rafah (Al Mayadeen)
■ 80 bodies recovered from Shifa hospital mass graves, some victims 'executed' at point blank range (PressTV)
■ Another mass grave uncovered in Gaza, bodies ‘without heads’ found (PressTV)

80 bodies unearthed from newly discovered mass graves at al-Shifa Hospital | Israeli forces ordered fresh evacuations from areas in Rafah on Saturday as it prepared to expand its operation in the city. ● The Israeli army said on Saturday about 300,000 people had left eastern Rafah after Israel ordered people to leave that area of the southern Gaza city this week. ● Israeli forces issued the order and captured the Rafah border crossing with Egypt as it prepared for a ground invasion of the city. ● On Friday, the UN said more than 100,000 Palestinians had evacuated Rafah this week. On Saturday the European Union also condemned Israel's forced evacuation orders in Rafah "unacceptable". “Evacuation orders for civilians trapped in Rafah to unsafe zones are unacceptable,” President of the European Council Charles Michel posted on X. ● The Palestinian health ministry is reporting that at least 34,971 Palestinians have been killed and 78,641 others wounded since Israel's war on Gaza began in October. There are also an estimated 10,000 Palestinians buried under the rubble of buildings flattened by Israeli bombing, according to the Palestinian civil defence.

■ Israel army calls on Palestinians to evacuate more areas in Gaza Strip (Anadolu)
■ Israel’s war on Gaza live: Israeli forces ‘carpet bombing’ Jabalia (Al Jazeera)
■ France condemns Israel's ground attack on Rafah (Anadolu)

Spain, Portugal, Greece, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza | Israel's attacks on Gaza were protested with marches Saturday in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands. ● Thousands marched in Madrid to support Palestine. They gathered in the city center of Madrid on the call of non-governmental organizations and participated in the demonstration organized under the title "We condemn the genocide and Zionist massacre in Gaza." ● Thousands holding Palestinian flags criticized Israel and its collaborators -- the US and the European Union. Carrying banners that read: "This is not a war but genocide", "Free Palestine", "Not in my name" and "Murderer Israel", protesters delivered the message: "No to genocide in Gaza, occupation in Palestine, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism." ● Demonstrators demanded that the Spanish government and the international community take "urgent, concrete and effective measures against Israel, to stop arms trade with Israel and to boycott Israeli companies involved in the massacre."

'Dropping bombs on thousands of innocent children, women and the elderly does not make you a hero,' Petro says | Colombian President Gustavo Petro blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, saying he will "go down in history as a genocide perpetrator."

💬 "Mr. Netanyahu, you will go down in history as a genocide perpetrator. Dropping bombs on thousands of innocent children, women and the elderly does not make you a hero," he said in a post on X in response to Netanyahu's antisemitism accusation. "You remain alongside those who murdered millions of Jews in Europe. Genocide, whether it is related to religion or not, is genocide. At least stop the onslaught that is continuing," he said.

■ Netanyahu trades insults with Colombia president over Gaza war (The Telegraph) | "Israel will not be lectured by an antisemitic supporter of Hamas," Netanyahu wrote in a post on X on Saturday.

Trade union displays message calling for ceasefire, as Israeli entrant qualifies for final in Sweden amid mass protest | A Belgian broadcaster interrupted its coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final on Thursday night to display a protest message condemning Israel's war on Gaza. ● In an act organised by a trade union, the screen briefly went black ahead of the semi-final coverage on VRT, Belgium's public-service broadcaster in Flemish. It then aired the message: "This is a union action. We condemn the human rights violations by the state of Israel. Moreover, the state of Israel destroys press freedom. Therefore, we are interrupting the broadcast momentarily." The message concluded with the hashtags "CeasefireNow" and "StopGenocide". ● Israeli singer Eden Golan participated in the semi-final on Thursday in the Swedish city of Malmo, qualifying for Saturday's final.

■ Israeli Eurovision singer features on Ukrainian ‘kill list’ (RT.com)

David Miller | The Campaign Against Antisemitism is a covert instrument of the foreign policy objectives of the illegitimate and genocidal Zionist regime. It should be shut down. | Gideon Falter had his face plastered all over the British mainstream media after he tried to provoke a confrontation with thousands of anti-genocide protestors in central London on April 13. A specially edited video produced by his organisation the Campaign for Antisemitism, was released to the media 5 days after the march. It caused a deluge of headlines on the "shocking moment" police threatened to arrest Falter "simply" for being "quite openly Jewish". This narrative dominated all major news outlets for some five days, until Sky News published a much longer video, lasting 13 minutes, which showed the encounter in context. This started to change the story.

■ APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP (ORDER OF 26 JANUARY 2024) (.pdf) + APPLICATION INSTITUTING PROCEEDINGS (.pdf)
■ THE EXPRESSION OF HATRED FOR GENTILES (Richard Edmondson/Nahida Izzat) (10/04/14)

At a military base that now doubles as a detention center in Israel’s Negev desert, an Israeli working at the facility snapped two photographs of a scene that he says continues to haunt him. | Rows of men in gray tracksuits are seen sitting on paper-thin mattresses, ringfenced by barbed wire. All appear blindfolded, their heads hanging heavy under the glare of floodlights. A putrid stench filled the air and the room hummed with the men’s murmurs, the Israeli who was at the facility told CNN. Forbidden from speaking to each other, the detainees mumbled to themselves. “We were told they were not allowed to move. They should sit upright. They’re not allowed to talk. Not allowed to peek under their blindfold.” Guards were instructed “to scream uskot” – shut up in Arabic – and told to “pick people out that were problematic and punish them,” the source added.

■ Gaza civilians voice out their chilling encounters with Israeli torture (TRT World)
■ Tied, diapered, beaten: Israeli insiders reveal severe Palestinian torture (TRT World)
■ Gaza Al-Shifa doctor tortured to death by Israeli forces (Al Mayadeen)
■ 3,000+ Palestinians from Gaza detained, tortured in Israeli prisons (04/16/24)
■ Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees, spike in arbitrary arrests (04/13/24)
■ Released Detainees From Israeli Prisons Showed Signs of Torture (03/18/24)
■ Torture, Executions, Babies Left to Die, Sexual Abuse… These Are Israel’s Crimes (03/18/24)
■ Iron bars, electric shocks, dogs and cigarette burns: How Palestinians are tortured in Israeli detention (03/12/24)
■ Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests

Aid operations set to go into 'standstill' as Cairo ceasefire talks end with no breakthrough | Around 80,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee again in recent days as Israel intensified attacks in Rafah and across the Gaza Strip, according to Unrwa. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Thursday that people were “facing yet another forced displacement in the Gaza Strip”, leaving an “unbearable” toll on families. ● People were forced to flee from eastern Rafah and parts of Gaza City as Israeli troops launched another ground assault on the Zeitoun neighbourhood overnight. At least 60 people were killed in Israeli attacks in the past days, bringing the total death toll to 34,904 since 7 October when the war broke out, according to the Palestinian health ministry. ● The armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, released several battlefield updates on Thursday, indicating fierce street fighting in eastern Rafah and the Zeitoun neighbourhood.

Colombia’s president has slammed the Gaza war as a “genocide” | Colombian President Gustavo Petro has urged the International Criminal Court and the UN Security Council to take action to prevent a “genocide” of the Palestinian people in the Gazan city of Rafah. ● Israel’s war cabinet approved a “measured expansion” of the military operation in Rafah on Friday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledging to push ahead with the offensive despite the US threats to curtail military aid.

💬 “Netanyahu will not stop the genocide,” Petro wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, reacting to the Israeli leader’s declaration. “That implies an international arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.”

The Colombian leader went on to suggest that the UN Security Council should “consider the establishment of a peacekeeping force in the territory of Gaza.” In a Labor Day speech in Bogota earlier this month, Petro vowed to cut diplomatic relations with Israel’s “genocidal” leadership, expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza whose “children have died, dismembered by bombs.” ● Rafah in southern Gaza is the territory's last major population center still not under Israeli control. Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Palestinians have taken shelter there in recent months. Earlier this week, Israel bombarded the city and sent troops and dozens of tanks into the eastern districts in what it described as a “limited” operation.