Hezbollah

Palestine

UN: Israeli attacks on medical facilities are war crimes

A UN report documented Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities and medical personnel in the Gaza Strip in violation of international human rights law, calling the attacks war crimes and crimes against humanity. Citing the World Health Organization, the report states that between October 7, 2023 and July 30, 2024, Israel engaged in “498 attacks on health care facilities in the Gaza Strip,” with 747 people killed, 969 injured, and 110 facilities affected. The report—written by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel—also condemned Israeli treatment of detainees, citing instances of abuse, torture, sexual assault, and arbitrary detention. (Photo: Mohamed Solaimane/TNH)

Planet Watch

Ranting against the apocalypse II

With Lebanon under bombardment and the world awaiting Israel’s response to the Iranian missile attacks on its territory, fears mount that Iran’s nuclear facilities could be targeted—which, in addition to being an environmental disaster in its own right, could represent the crossing of a moral threshold toward the use of nuclear weapons. So two theaters of the world conflict—the Middle East and Ukraine—now constitute a looming nuclear threat. Meanwhile, the other horsemen of the apocalypse continue their relentless advance—climate change, cyber-based disinformation and the ultimate replacement of humanity by artificial intelligence. In Episode 246 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg looks for glimmers of hope in emerging signs of human resistance—such as the East Coast dockworkers’ strike, which is demanding a ban on all automation at the ports. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: CounterVortex)

Greater Middle East

Iran cites international law in attack on Israel

Iran launched scores of ballistic missiles into Israeli territory, in what it described as an exercise of its “legitimate right to self-defense under the UN Charter.” In a statement, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the attacks aimed to avenge the deaths of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and IRGC general Abbas Nilforoushan. Gen. Nilforoushan was apparently killed in the same strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs in which Nasrallah was slain. The Iranian attacks came hours after Israel announceda ground incursion into Lebanon, and as UN experts warned of the dire consequences of regional hostilities. (Image: Pixabay)

Greater Middle East

Lebanon: humanitarian crisis under Israeli bombardment

UN officials warn of a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Lebanon as death tolls mount from Israeli air-strikes. Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council: “Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon and we should all be alarmed by the escalation.” Human Rights Watch has called for urgent UN action, reporting that some 1,600 Israeli strikes have killed at least 700 people, including 50 children, and injured thousands in the span of four days. The UN Refugee Agency reveals that some 90,000 Lebanese residents had been displaced. (Photo: UNICEF/Dar Al Mussawir via UN News)

Greater Middle East

HRW: detonating communication devices violates international law

Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that the simultaneous detonation of thousands of communication devices across Lebanon and Syria violated customary international law. The explosions killed some 35 people and injured more than 2,000. The devices were evidently part of the Hezbollah communication network. Israel is widely believed to be behind the explosions, but has not commented. According to HRW, the targeting of the communication devices contravened Rule 80 of Customary International Humanitarian Law. The rule prohibits the use of booby traps attached to objects likely to attract civilians, or “objects in normal civilian daily use.” HRW also stated that the detonation of the devices “whose exact location could not be reliably known” was “unlawfully indiscriminate,” as both military and civilian populations were struck “without distinction.” (Image: Pixabay)

Greater Middle East

Ceasefire talks, as Gaza death toll crosses 40,000

A fresh round of ceasefire negotiations got underway in Doha, Qatar, aiming to bring an end to Israel’s more than 10-month-long war in the Gaza Strip and secure the release of the estimated 115 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. Forty-one of the hostages are believed to be dead, and the recorded death toll from Israel’s military campaign has now reached over 40,000, according to health authorities in the Strip. That’s roughly 2% of Gaza’s pre-war population—or one out of every 50 residents—that has been killed. (Photo: WAFA via Jurist)

Greater Middle East

Podcast: flashpoint Golan Heights

In Episode 237 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides some under-reported context for the international crisis that has quickly spiraled since last week’s deadly rocket strike on a Golan Heights village, and now threatens to escalate to the unthinkable. Under international law, the Golan is Syrian territory not Israeli. And the kids who were killed in the rocket strike were Druze not Jews. Most of the Druze residents of the Golan have refused Israeli citizenship and remain loyal to Syria. Only one country on Earth recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan—the USA, thanks to Donald Trump. Israel has a complicated history with the Druze, going back well before the occupation of the Golan in 1967. But the origins of the current trajectory toward regional war in a massacre of Druze youth points again to how peoples on the ground are exploited as pawns and propaganda in the cynical Great Power game. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Freedom’s Falcon via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East

Regional war looms closer after Golan rocket strike

Israeli warplanes hit several targets in southern Lebanon, as diplomats worked frantically to prevent a regional war after a rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Golan Heights. Israel is blaming Hezbollah for the rocket, which struck a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. Hezbollah has denied responsibility, asserting that a projectile from Israel’s own Iron Dome missile defense system hit the village amid strikes on military targets elsewhere in the area by the Iran-backed Lebanese armed organization. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading strikes over the Lebanese border since Oct. 8, a day after the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has killed 527 people in Lebanon since then, according to an AFP tally, including at least 104 civilians. Israel says 23 of its civilians and 17 soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah rocket-fire over this period. (Image: Pixabay)

Palestine

Hamas accepts ceasefire; Israel strikes Rafah

Hamas has announced that its leaders have told Egyptian and Qatari mediators that they accepted the most recent Gaza ceasefire proposal. Israel’s war cabinet responded by voting to continue the planned military operation in Rafah, and the IDF announced air-strikes on targets in the southern Gaza city. The strikes came as Palestinians in Gaza were celebrating Hamas’ announcement, and Israeli protestors joined families of the hostages to demand that Israel accept the deal. (Image: Workers set up tents donated by the Qatari Red Crescent in al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated “safe zone” in Gaza. Credit: Mohamed Soulaimane/TNH)

Syria

Syrian refugees face illegal ‘push-backs’

The Cyprus spokesperson for the United Nations Refugee Agency, Emilia Strovolidou, has urged the country to stop forcibly pushing away Syrian refugee boats arriving from Lebanon, a practice that violates international human rights law and the principle of non-refoulement. Strovolidou accused Cyprus authorities of using “violent” tactics to “destabilize” boats in order to thwart refugees from arriving on the island’s shores. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch says Lebanese authorities have “arbitrarily detained, tortured, and forcibly returned Syrians to Syria in recent months.” (Photo: Syrian refugees arriving in Lesvos, Greece. Greek authorities have also been accused of push-backs. Via Wikimedia Commons)

Iran

Iran, Hezbollah threaten Argentina: Milei

The Argentine government of far-right President Javier Milei announced that it has placed its borders on alert due to potential infiltration of operatives linked to Iran and Hezbollah. There have long been concerns about a Hezbollah presence in the Triborder Region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. But Interior Minister Patricia Bullrich in making the announcement this time emphasized a supposed threat from Bolivia. Following years of closer ties, including security cooperation, Bolivia and Iran signed a formal defense pact in July 2023. The deal was said to inlcude an Iranian pledge to provide Bolivia with drones for narcotics enforcement, but the terms were secretive, with both Argentina and the Bolivian opposition demanding clarity on the details. (Photo: Khamenei.ir via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East

Gaza: flashpoint for regional war? (redux redux)

At least 42 people were reported killed in Israeli air-strikes near the Syrian city of Aleppo, allegedly targeting an arms depot belonging to militant group Hezbollah. Those killed included Hezbollah members and Syrian soldiers—as well as civilians, by some reports. Israeli air-strikes in southern Lebanon meanwhile killed 16 people, and one in Israel was killed by a barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah from south Lebanon. Earlier, a series of air-strikes on Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zor killed 15 people, including a World Health Organization staff member as well as an Iranian military adviser. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for those strikes. But Israel’s intermittent air-strikes on Iran-backed militia forces in Syria have been escalating since the Gaza bombardment began. (Image: Pixabay)