HAMAS OFFICIAL: WE FULLLY SUPPORT THE SYRIAN OPPOSITION FORCES

An interview with Hamas official Talal Nasser, aired on Dec 2, regarding recent developments in #Syria.

He voiced strong support for the Syrian opposition forces and dismissed all claims that Syria’s revolution is Zionist.

He revealed that Hamas received $20 million in one month alone from the Syrian opposition factions and that Hamas was in regular contact with them.

He also revealed that the Syrian Revolutionaries freed several political prisoners who had been imprisoned in Aleppo Prison by Bashar al-Assad.

#Palestine

On January 11, South Africa accused Israel of genocide in Gaza before the International Court of Justice – the UN’s top court. The country, which moved this court asked it to issue orders that will compel Israel to suspend military operations in the Palestinian region. 

Adila Hassim, advocate of South Africa’s high court, presented the case for why Israel’s actions can be clearly construed as genocidal.  https://thewire.in/world/israel-south-africa-genocidal-acts-icj 

Below is her submission in full. Almost each line of the original text carries a footnote. The Wire has removed them for ease of reading. The original text and annotations are available here.

Genocidal acts

Israel continues to exercise control over the airspace, territorial waters, land crossings, water, electricity, electromagnetic sphere and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, as well as over key governmental functions. As the honourable minister has said, entry and exit by air and sea to Gaza is prohibited with Israel operating the only two crossing points.

Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated places in the world is home to approximately 2.3 million Palestinians, almost half of them children.

For the past 96 days, Israel has subjected Gaza to what has been described as one of the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli weaponry and bombs from air, land and sea.

by Adila Hassim

11/01/2024

https://thewire.in/history/israel-gaza-palestine-aerial-bombing

The bombing continues, and one question stands out: Why 1,200 people killed by guerillas matter more to Western governments than 12,000 – and counting – killed by bombs from the sky. Why one is a barbaric crime, and the other a civilised military action.

There are many correct answers to that. One of them is the history of bombing.

In a single line: From its beginnings, over a hundred years ago, aerial bombing was a technology meant for colonial powers to use exclusively against colonised, usually indigenous people.

For a hundred years, the West’s monopoly over that most lethal violence has conditioned how we see the victims of bombs – if we see them at all.

In 1920, the Royal Air Force carried out the world’s first systematic bombing campaign against Somalis. Thereafter, the first societies in to experience bombing were in Iraq, North and East Africa, and the North-West Frontier of India.

Every deflection and defence of Israel’s leadership – they’re not trying to hit civilians, Hamas is at fault for placing its fighters among civilians – is old news, straight from a hundred-year-old textbook for colonial collective punishment.

Meanwhile Israeli commanders have been saying it out loud, from day one: “The emphasis is on damage, not on accuracy.”

by Raghu Karnad

17/11/2023

In this up-is-down world, where Western democracies who pride themselves on their “rule of law” and “respect for human rights” are standing firmly on the side of an occupying power as it prepares to slaughter a largely defenseless civilian population, nothing seems remarkable anymore.

The stated international consensus is for a two-state solution to the Palestine issue. The US, UK and Europe all publicly say this is the outcome they seek. The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority want this. Even Hamas has said it is prepared to enter a long-term truce if Israel withdraws to 1967 boundaries.

It is Israel alone that is opposed to a Palestinian state emerging. Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel for all but one of the past 14 years, has long insisted that there will be “no Palestinian state on my watch.”

In the US, meanwhile, politicians are falling over themselves to encourage Israel to “level” Gaza, respond “disproportionately,” or simply “treat sick people the way they deserve to be treated and eliminate them.” This is preparing public opinion for genocide.

More than 40 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are children under the age of 15. That is roughly one million children. That means that right now, Israel is depriving one million children of food, water, electricity and medicine. And it is doing so with the full support of the “Free World.”