Author: thefreeonline

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says overnight US strikes are ‘violations of the sovereignty and territorial integrity’ of the two countries.

from thefreeonline on 3rd Feb 2024 by South Front.Press and Al Jazeera

‘Strategic error’: Iran condemns US attacks on Iraq, Syria

US President Joe Biden said the strikes of sovereign countries, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Yemen, ‘will continue at times and places of our choosing’ [File: Kade Bise/ US Department of Defense/ AFP]

There is a great danger that IRI responses may kill more US troops and spark more escalation

“At least 16 people have been killed in U.S. retaliatory strikes in Iraq, the government said, condemning the “new aggression against” its sovereignty. Civilians were among the fatalities, and 25 people were wounded in the bombings that targeted both civilian and security areas, a government spokesperson said.“South Front

On Friday, Syrian state media said that an “American aggression” on a number of sites in Syria’s desert areas and the Syrian and Iraqi border resulted in a number of casualties and injuries

Iran says the attacks by the United States inside Iraq and Syria are a “strategic error” that will only add to tensions and instability in the Middle East heightened by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Most western media sites suppressed the news of the US killings, merely asserting an anonymous official has ‘hinted’ at a ‘deescalation.

Iran says the attacks by the United States inside Iraq and Syria are a “strategic error” that will only add to tensions and instability in the Middle East heightened by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Iraqi authorities say 16 people have been killed anbd 25 wounded including civilians in strikes near the Syrian border.

Now there’s a cascade of condemnations from Iraqi politicians and militias accusing the US of “aggression”, insisting their country is not “an arena for settling scores”.

Despite the heavy death toll, the U.S. strikes failed to deter Iranian-backed forces. Just minutes after the strikes, there were reports of a rocket attack on the Conoco gas plant in Syria’s Deir Ezzor, which hosts a number of U.S. troops.South Front

The US forces launched a wave of air strikes against Iranian-backed fighters in Iraq and Syria on Friday in retaliation for a drone attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers on Sunday.

Iraq warns of disastrous consequences for region after US strikes

The next day, the IRI announced that it had targeted the Harir Air Base in the northern Iraqi autonomous region of Kurdistan with a suicide drone and released video footage of the attack. It also vowed that its military campaign against U.S. forces will go on.South Front

The IRI carried out more than a hundred attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since the outbreak of the war in Gaza and the unwavering support by Washington for it.

The U.S. vowed that strikes on Iranian-backed forces will continue. This will likely only lead to more escalation in Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

IRAN REACTION

“The return of stability and security to the region cannot be imagined but through focusing on the root cause of the crisis and resolving it,” it said.The US has operated military bases around the Middle East for decades. There are about 30,000 US soldiers scattered across the region. In addition, since the Gaza war began in October, the US has temporarily sent thousands of additional troops to the region, including on warships. Friday’s strikes by the US appeared to stop short of directly targeting Iran or senior leaders of the Iranian army within its borders. Iran has denied it was behind the Jordan attack.

In a statement on Saturday, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said the US attacks were a “violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria, international law, and a clear violation of the United Nations Charter”.“The attacks merely support the goals of the Zionist regime. Such attacks increasingly involve the US government in the region and overshadow the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza,” it said, referring to Israel.

“The continuation of such adventures is a threat to regional and international peace and security,” it added, urging the United Nations Security Council and the international community to prevent the expansion of the crisis.The Iranian statement said the “roots of the tension and crisis in the region go back to the occupation by the Israeli regime and the continuation of this regime’s military operations in Gaza and the genocide of the Palestinians with the unlimited support of the US”.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC:

• With Strategic Bombers, U.S. Launches Strikes Against Iraq, Syria (Videos)
• From Ukraine To Gaza, U.S. Is Failing

Two Fighters Of Hezbollah’s Ally ‘Amal’ Killed In Israeli Strikes On Lebanon

Houthis Fire Ballistic Missiles From Yemen At Israel’s Eilat In Support Of Gaza (Video)

With Strategic Bombers, U.S. Launches Strikes Against Iraq, Syria (Videos)

• Iraq says 16 people, including civilians, killed in ‘new US aggression’
• US approves plan for strikes on Iran-linked targets in Iraq, Syria

• US to hit back against Iran-linked targets: Who and where will it strike?

• Israel plans ground attack on Rafah, ‘last refuge’ for Gaza’s displaced

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.616.1_en.html#goog_1771619978

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 02.02.2024 Attacking Iran would be a catastrophic mistake for Washington, as the US is too internally weak to wage a new major in the Middle East, University of Tehran professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast. US officials have reportedly signaled that plans have been approved for […]

US Not Prepared for War Against Iran and ‘Axis of Resistance’

The instructive cases of Germany and Switzerland When the West nails the Israeli coffin of the Palestinian people! by Yorgos Mitralias First the facts: UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) supports almost 4 million Palestinian refugees, running their schools and hospitals and providing them with drinking water and food. In Gaza alone, […]

Don’t forget Germany & Switzerland: When Europe & US nail shut the Israeli coffin of the Palestinian people

from thefreeonline  1 Feb, 2024 – 22.00 GMT HomeWorld News

Gaza still being blitzed. Rafah attack threatened as new Ceasefire reportedly imminent.. 2 Feb 2024 -22.00 GMT

Hundreds of thousands of now homeless and trapped Palestinians now face the Israeli Genocide War machine as it approaches the Rafah border 2/2/24

Qatari negotiators are awaiting a final response from Hamas officials, who have seemingly welcomed part of the plan. Netanyahu continues to declare there is no possible deal. Israel tries to force acceptance by preparing a mass attack on Rafah border area.

More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are sheltering in Rafah, mainly cold and hungry in makeshift tents and public buildings.

Hamas says it’s studying Gaza cease-fire proposal, but appears to rule out some key provisions .. The plan moves in 3 stages and does not include the key Palestinian demand of a permanent ceasefire.

• Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, said the group remains committed to its initial demands for a permanent cease-fire. Hamdan also said the group seeks the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held for acts related to the conflict with Israel, including those serving life sentences. He mentioned two by name, including Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian uprising leader seen as a unifying figure.
  Video Duration 01 minutes 43 seconds 01:43

  

The ceasefire plan was hashed out in Paris over the weekend, with Qatari and Egyptian diplomats mediating between Israel and the Palestinian militant group. Delegations from West Jerusalem and Gaza left the French capital promising to study the proposal and negotiate further this week, and by Thursday evening, a deal was apparently within reach.

Women march for a deal to release Israeli hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, in Tel Aviv, February 1, 2024. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

“Israel agreed to the ceasefire proposal and we have initial positive confirmation from Hamas,” a spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Thursday evening, according to Al Jazeera. “We are awaiting their response,” the spokesman added.

The proposed ceasefire would be implemented in three stages, according to a Hamas statement shared with Reuters earlier this week. The first phase would see fighting stop for 40 days as Hamas hands over the female civilians, children, and elderly people it is still holding captive. During this time, large-scale deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza would resume.

Israel’s war on Gaza live: 11,500 children killed in enclave so far. UNICEF says about 17,000 children in Gaza are unaccompanied or have been separated from their families during the conflict. by Federica Marsi

The following stages would see Hamas turn over captive Israeli soldiers and the bodies of Israeli troops, in exchange for further aid deliveries and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

“Military operations on both sides will stop during the three stages,” the militants said, adding that the number of Palestinian prisoners freed would be open to negotiation.

The proposal falls short of the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza that Hamas initially demanded. As a step toward ending the war, however, it also threatens Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to keep fighting until Israel achieves “total victory” over the militants, as he has promised on multiple occasions.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has reported that Israel’s siege of the al-Amal Hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis has continued for an 11th day.

While hardliners within Netanyahu’s cabinet have pressed him to reject any deal they view as too lenient towards Hamas, Israel has faced international condemnation over its conduct in Gaza, and two of the Jewish state’s most stalwart backers – the US and UK – suggested this week that they could soon recognize an independent Palestinian state.

Israeli forces must withdraw fast

Such an outcome would be a political disaster for Netanyahu, who angered Washington and London last month when he outright rejected a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict with the Palestinians.

Israeli forces pound Gaza amid Hamas studies ceasefire proposal 1 day ago

3

11,500 Pales­tin­ian chil­dren killed in Is­raeli at­tacks in Gaza

from thefreeonline on 2nd Feb 2024 by Middle East Monitor/ and Wikipedia

The Ceasefire Deal may free 100’s of Palestinian hostages for the last Israelis held in Gaza. But Israel jails 1000’s more without charges.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said the Israeli occupation refuses to disclose any information about detainees taken from Gaza, Quds Press reported.

Israel is incarcerating approx. 10,000 Palestinian hostages (prisoners without charges).

After the start of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, the number of Palestinians held in administrative detention (hostages) rose from 1,319 to 2,070 between 1 October and 1 November.^[95][96][97] AT THIS RATE OF ARRESTS ISRAEL HAD AT LEAST 4000 PALESTINIAN HOSTAGES BY THE END OF JANUARY 2024.

In November 2023, in exchange for the 240 hostages taken on Hamas’ October 7th attack,^[66][67] Israel proposed release of 300 prisoners, most of them women and children.

^68] But over two-thirds of these prisoners had not been formally convicted of any crime or charged with any crime.^[68]We don’t have official figures but if this ratio of prisoners held without charge is generalised Israel has AT LEAST 6,000 MORE PALESTINIAN HOSTAGES, BRINGING THE TOTAL TO 10,000 APPROX.

Palestinians, holding banners and photos of their relatives, gather to stage a demonstration on demanding release of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in front of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) building in Ramallah, West Bank on January 02, 2024 [İssam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said the Israeli occupation refuses to disclose any information about detainees taken from Gaza, Quds Press reported.

The root of Israeli racist apartheid is a 3000 year old biblical assertion that Jews are God’s chosen race, as well as other scripture, taken out of context but repeatedly quoted on TV by Netanyahu, in which God urges Jews to massacre another local tribe.

Israeli soldiers torture Palestinian detainees – Middle East Monitor Viral footage shows Israeli occupation soldiers beating naked Palestinians in the West Bank

In a statement issued yesterday, the rights group said the Israeli occupation is carrying out “the crime of enforced disappearance” against Gaza detainees, following a number of military orders and laws specifically enacted for them.

see also..Israel rounding up hundreds of Palestinian boys, men and disappearing them – Middle East Monitor

The Israeli Knesset has recently ratified regulations depriving “Gaza detainees” of meeting with a lawyer for another four months.

Images from Gaza show Palestinian men being rounded up from shelters, stripped to their underwear and made to wait in the cold while naked and blindfolded. They are later seen being taken away on trucks to undisclosed locations.

It is not clear how many boys and men were disappeared, but some reports have put the figure as high as 700. They are said to have been taken from shelter schools in northern Gaza where thousands of displaced civilians were forced to take shelter as a result of the bombing and destruction of their neighbourhoods and homes.

Those who have been released bear signs of torture, exhaustion and malnourishment.

To all this we should add that Israeli apartheid laws are extremely repressive and thousands of Palestinians are imprisoned for obviously tiny, ridiculous or invented crimes.

*************

For western media, Israel’s genocidal massacre of Gaza is not ‘deadly’. How the West promotes Israeli racism

by DES FREEDMAN at Declassified Media

Right across the Anglo-American mainstream media, the killing of Palestinians is seen as normal. It’s only Israeli lives that matter.

Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in two separate incidents in Gaza on 22 January. Mainstream media outlets around the world reacted in unison: that this was the “deadliest day” for Israel since 7 October.

But on the same day, barely mentioned, Israeli forces killed almost 200 Palestinians in Gaza including at least 65 people in Khan Younis alone. 

This exact phrase the “deadliest day” was used to mourn Israeli deaths while ignoring mass murder of Palestinians on the same day in headlines on 23 January carried by news agencies such as Reuters and AFP, and major broadcasters including the BBC, CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC and ITV News.  the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, Daily Telegraph, the Sun, Jerusalem Post, Guardian, London’s Evening Standard, Financial Times, Independent and Yahoo News….etc……….. for full article see HERE Declassified Media

…..

from thefreeonline  1 Feb, 2024 – 22.00 GMT HomeWorld News

Gaza still being blitzed as new Ceasefire reportedly takes hold.. 2 Feb 2024 -22.00 GMT

Qatari negotiators are awaiting a final response from Hamas officials, who have seemingly welcomed the plan.

Israeli women demand their government strike a deal to free hostages held in Gaza by Hamas in Tel Aviv, Israel, February 1, 2024 ©  AP / Oded Balilty

Qatar says Hamas has given ‘initial positive confirmation’

Israel has agreed to a ceasefire proposal that would halt its war with Hamas, Al Jazeera reported on Thursday, citing the Qatari Foreign Ministry. Hamas has reportedly given the plan a “positive” response.

The ceasefire plan was hashed out in Paris over the weekend, with Qatari and Egyptian diplomats mediating between Israel and the Palestinian militant group. Delegations from West Jerusalem and Gaza left the French capital promising to study the proposal and negotiate further this week, and by Thursday evening, a deal was apparently within reach.

Women march for a deal to release Israeli hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, in Tel Aviv, February 1, 2024. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

“Israel agreed to the ceasefire proposal and we have initial positive confirmation from Hamas,” a spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Thursday evening, according to Al Jazeera. “We are awaiting their response,” the spokesman added.

The proposed ceasefire will be implemented in three stages, according to a Hamas statement shared with Reuters earlier this week. The first phase would see fighting stop for 40 days as Hamas hands over the female civilians, children, and elderly people it is still holding captive. During this time, large-scale deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza would resume.

The following stages would see Hamas turn over captive Israeli soldiers and the bodies of Israeli troops, in exchange for further aid deliveries and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

“Military operations on both sides will stop during the three stages,” the militants said, adding that the number of Palestinian prisoners freed would be open to negotiation.

The proposal falls short of the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza that Hamas initially demanded. As a step toward ending the war, however, it also threatens Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to keep fighting until Israel achieves “total victory” over the militants, as he has promised on multiple occasions.

While hardliners within Netanyahu’s cabinet have pressed him to reject any deal they view as too lenient towards Hamas, Israel has faced international condemnation over its conduct in Gaza, and two of the Jewish state’s most stalwart backers – the US and UK – suggested this week that they could soon recognize an independent Palestinian state.

Israeli forces must withdraw fast

Such an outcome would be a political disaster for Netanyahu, who angered Washington and London last month when he outright rejected a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict with the Palestinians.

Israeli forces pound Gaza, Hamas studies ceasefire proposal1 day ago

from thefreeonline  By Finian Cunningham at Strategic Culture February 1, 2024

Biden’s comments Make a Clear Case for US/UK guilt in Gaza genocide – and logically gives Russia’s Right to Retaliate over IL-76 Shoot-Down

Joe Biden is contending that the United States has the right to attack Iran as a result of the deadly strike on a U.S. base in Jordan which killed three American troops.

By the same logic Biden admits the US is ‘GUILTY’ of murdering 27,000 people in Gaza because it supplied the weapons, and killing the Ukrainian POWS with a gifted Patriot missile 3 days ago…. and millions more in previous wars.

Biden is throwing rocks in a glass house if we then look at the case of the IL-76 shoot-down over Russia when 74 people were killed.

Iran nowadays is a close partner in BRICS of Russia, India and China, and has strong support of the entire non-western world in demanding a halt to the butchery of Palestinians in Gaza. It also claims to have developed unstoppable hypersonic missiles capable of destroying US warships and aircraft carriers.

Still US politicians and media are hysterically raging that ‘WEAK and COWARDLY’ Biden is ‘BETRAYING AMERICA’ by not immediately blitzing Iran and its 87 million innocent people.

see also Stupid Macho U.S. Electioneering Will Push Biden Into Doomed War – The Free

It is by no means clear if Iran was involved in the Jordan base raid. Tehran strongly denies it and even the Pentagon has admitted there is no evidence showing Iran had a hand in the drone attack.

Nevertheless, Biden has asserted Iran is to blame and that this gives the U.S. a right to respond militarily. If Biden can make that case, then the United States and its NATO allies should be held accountable for the shooting down of the IL-76 transport plane over Russia killing all onboard, according to the reasoning of none other than the US President.

By “accountable” that means Russia has the right to take retaliatory military action against the culprit of the crime in which 74 people were killed. Again, this is according to Biden’s own reasoning.