Day 141, as the assault on Gaza continues, a new development on the part of the corrupt Netanyahu government.
The Netanyahu government -- already on trial for corruption in Israeli courts and on trial for journalism in the International Criminal Court -- openly attacks the families of the hostages.
A defense of the indefensible acts will be offered shortly by Debra Messing, she's just busy right now gluing hair extensions onto the bald spots of her head. After that, she'll be Tweeting up a firestorm to explain how the Israeli people attacked in Tel Aviv are actually anti-semitic.
Corky Siemaszko and Chantal Da Silva (NBC NEWS) report:
An Israeli woman who was released by Hamas after weeks in captivity has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of having “forgotten” the remaining hostages in Gaza, including her American husband.
In
an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Molly Hunter on Thursday, former
hostage Aviva Siegel said she believes Netanyahu is prioritizing his own
political survival and his bid to crush Hamas over efforts to return
the hostages.
“I think that Bibi Netanyahu is thinking about himself more than thinking about us,” Siegel, 62, said.
Siegel,
who was released in November after 51 days in captivity, said she
wanted Netanyahu to “stop the war” and focus on bringing her husband,
Keith Siegel, an American Israeli, back “home as soon as possible.”
But, she said, “I think that Netanyahu has forgotten about Keith and forgotten to be human and bring the human people back.”
Read full story.
The world has seen the reality of the Netanyahu government in its assault on Gaza and now they see the reality of the Netanyahu government in its assault on Israelis. This as THE NATIONAL reports:
Brazilian President Luiz Inรกcio Lula da Silva alleged on Saturday
that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, after stirring
controversy a week ago by comparing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza
to the Nazi Holocaust.
The president said he wouldn't give up his
“dignity for falsehood”, an apparent reference to calls for him to
retract comments comparing Israel’s conduct in Gaza to the Holocaust, in
which six million Jews and others perished during the Second World War.
“What
the Israeli government is doing is not war, it is genocide,” he wrote
on X, formerly Twitter. “Children and women are being murdered.”
Meanwhile, opposition to the continued assault on Gaza builds in the US. Joe Queally (COMMON DREAMS) reports:
Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke became the latest high-profile member of
the party to back the push for Michigan voters to tick the
"uncommitted" box on the primary ballot next week as a way to protest
President Joe Biden's unconditional support of Israel's unyielding
assault on the people of Gaza.
"I
do think it makes sense for those who want to see this administration
do more, or do a better job, to exert that political pressure and get
the president's attention and the attention of those on his campaign so
that the United States does better," said the former congressman who has
run for both president and the U.S. Senate.
In an interview with the Michigan Advance on Friday, O'Rourke explained that he was partly influenced by a recent New York Times op-ed by Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud which argued
that "no amount of landmark legislation" passed by the Biden
administration "can outweigh the more than 100,000 people killed,
wounded, or missing in Gaza. The scales of justice will not allow it."
O'Rourke said he agrees "with the aims and the goals" of the grassroots campaign
in Michigan that is urging Democrats to use Tuesday's primary contest,
in which Biden faces no real opponent, as a way to express the deep
frustration many voters in the state are feeling over the carnage in
Gaza.
"We should have a ceasefire, there should be a return of
each [and] every single one of those hostages [taken by Hamas], there
should be an end to this war and there should be a negotiated solution
to Palestinian statehood," O’Rourke told the news outlet. "All of that
needs to happen, and I share the concern that the United States is not
doing close to enough to bring those things to pass."
Polls have shown
a strong majority of Democratic voters support an immediate cease-fire
in Gaza, something Biden has steadfastly refused. Disagreement with the
administration's policy is especially high among younger voters as well
as the Arab American and Muslim Americans who represent a sizeable bloc
of Michigan voters.
The killing continues. ALJAZEERA reports:
Norway’s embassy in Palestine has shared a social media post mourning
the deaths of two Palestinian human rights lawyers killed in Gaza.
Norway described Nour Naser Abu Al-Nour and Dana Yaghi as two
“brilliant young lawyers” who worked with the Palestinian Centre for
Human Rights (PCHR), defending women’s rights.
PCHR said that Dana Yaghi was killed along with 40 others by an
Israeli air strike on her family home in Deir el-Balah, on Thursday.
Two days earlier, “Israeli warplanes killed our colleague Nour Abu
Nour along seven members of her family, including her two-year-old
daughter,” PCHR added.
Also continuing are the arrests. THE NATIONAL notes, "Israeli forces arrested at least 22 Palestinians overnight in the
occupied West Bank, including a journalist and two children, the
Palestinian Prisoners Society said on Saturday. This brings to 7,210 the total number of Palestinians arrested in the West Bank since October 7, the society added." NBC NEWS notes, "Dozens of medical personnel arrested from the Nasser Medical Complex are
still in detention, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza." NBC's Mirna Alsharif and Segilola Arisekola quote the Palestine Red Crescent Society stating, "The
Israeli occupation continues to detain the PRCS volunteers Mu’men
Othman Dahir, Tamer Mahmoud Shahin, and Hamdan Sameer Abu Khater, for
the nineteenth consecutive day. They were
arrested while passing through what is called 'the humanitarian
corridor' set up to evacuate displaced persons from PRCS Al-Amal
Hospital in #KhanYunis."
Gaza remains under assault. Day 141 of the assault in the wave that began in October.
Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza
by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.
But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge
for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel,
the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover
for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."
CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is '
the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."
ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily
basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to
school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."
NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe
Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war,
according to the latest national NBC News poll.
The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom
believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The
slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US
Congressional Research Service.
Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have
condemned
the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of
Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.
United Nations Women noted,
"More than
1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza --
have
been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million
women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million
people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."
NBC NEWS notes, "More than 29,600 people have been killed in Gaza
since the war began,
according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 69,400 have
been injured, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead." Months ago,
AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."
February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained
on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000
Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of
their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe
Lazzarini Tweeted:
And the area itself?
Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s
military offensive
has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole
neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been
blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are
still standing, but most are battered shells."
Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a
new study of satellite imagery
by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and
Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of
45 per cent of housing
destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate
of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second
World War."
Tonight ALJAZEERA reports:
Israeli forces have killed at least seven people, including a child,
in Rafah, in the latest deadly attack on Palestinians struggling to
survive in the southern Gaza Strip’s largest city.
An Israeli air raid hit a residential building belonging to the
Shahin family on Saturday, housing displaced people from the Abu Hamra
and Abu Sultan families, the Palestinian state news agency Wafa
reported.
Let's wind down with this Tweet from Paul Rudnick.
Well said as always. Paul is our country's most astute and hilarious social critic. The following sites updated:
