Israel

Syria

Syrian revolution met with US, Israeli air-strikes

The same day the Assad regime fell and rebel forces took Damascus, the US military carried out a series of air-strikes against Islamic State positions across central Syria. The Pentagon’s Central Command announced that it “struck over 75 targets using multiple US Air Force assets, including B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s.” The targets included “ISIS leaders, operatives, and camps.” Also that day, Israeli warplanes conducted dozens of raids across Syria, including in Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) counted more than 100 Israeli strikes on military and industrial targets, including a research center believed to be linked to chemical weapon production. Israel said it was acting to stop weapons from falling “into the hands of extremists.” Israel has additionally seized control of a demilitarized “buffer zone” in the Golan Heights, saying the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria had “collapsed” with the rebel take-over of the country. (Photo of B-52 bomber: USAF via A&SF)

Palestine

Amnesty International accuses Israel of genocide

In a landmark 300-page report, Amnesty International has accused Israeli authorities of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The report outlines three specific violations of the Genocide Convention: the killing of Palestinians, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions intended to bring about their physical destruction. This assertion comes after a thorough investigation involving interviews with over 200 individuals, satellite imagery analysis, and a review of public statements by Israeli officials. The report highlights the severe impact of Israel’s actions, with over 42,000 Palestinians, including 13,300 children, killed, and 97,000 injured. Entire neighborhoods have been leveled, and crucial infrastructure obliterated, leaving significant parts of Gaza uninhabitable. The humanitarian toll is severe, with civilians enduring desperate conditions, such as lack of clean water and constant bombing. (Photo: Mohammed Zaanoun/TNH)

Greater Middle East

Celebration and sorrow in Lebanon; no respite for Gaza

A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appears to be holding, with the US/France-brokered deal prompting thousands of displaced Lebanese civilians to head for their homes in the south. While there were celebrations on the road, so many homes, businesses and lives have been destroyed that the return is also marred by sorrow—with bodies still under the rubble of buildings flattened by Israel’s bombs. The days before the deal were particularly devastating, with Israel levelling an apartment block in central Beirut, reportedly killing at least 29 people. Both sides have traded accusations of violating the truce, which is based on the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. The next 60 days, during which both Hezbollah and Israel are set to withdraw from south Lebanon, will be crucial. While US President Joe Biden hopes to use this momentum to push for a deal in Gaza, no clear progress has been made on that front—meaning there is still no respite for civilians there. Israel is intensifying its bombardment in central Gaza, where medics say its military killed at least 26 people on the day after the Lebanon deal began, and aid—already mostly blockaded by Israel—is reportedly now being looted on a large scale with impunity. (Image via Flickr)

Syria

Syria: rebel forces launch new offensive on Aleppo

In the most significant escalation in Syria since a 2020 ceasefire instated under emergency conditions during the COVID pandemic, rebel forces in northwestern Idlib province launched a surprise offensive on the country’s most populous city, Aleppo. The rebel advance is said to have penetrated the perimeter of the city, which had been held for years by rebel forces before it was retaken by the regime with the help of Russian air power in 2016. Russia has responded to the new offensive with fresh air-strikes on Idlib, which has been coming under intermittent Russian bombardment for years. At least 225 fatalities are reported in the new fighting, including some 25 civilians killed in Russian air-strikes. (Photo: Syrian Observer)

Palestine

ICC seeks arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and possibly-deceased Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The court charged Netanyahu and Gallant with using starvation as a method of warfare and accused them of criminal responsibility for murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts in Gaza. Prosecutors said both Israeli officials intentionally deprived Gaza’s civilian population of essential supplies and were responsible for attacks against civilians. The ICC rejected Israel’s challenges to its jurisdiction, ruling that Palestine’s territorial jurisdiction provides sufficient basis for the court’s authority. Israel, which is not a party to the ICC, has consistently rejected the court’s authority over its nationals. (Photo via Twitter)

Palestine

UN committee: Israel’s methods in Gaza ‘consistent with genocide’

Israel’s warfare in Gaza is “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there, the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices said in a new report. “Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life—food, water, and fuel,” the Committee said. “These statements along with the systematic and unlawful interference of humanitarian aid make clear Israel’s intent to instrumentalise life-saving supplies for political and military gains.” (Photo: WAFA via WikimediaCommons)

Palestine

Gaza: demand ‘reckoning’ over ‘horrific violations’

The UN Human Rights Office released a report detailing six months of war in Gaza from November 2023 to April 2024, denouncing the “horrific” suffering inflicted by Israel as well as Palestinian armed groups, and warning of potential crimes against humanity. In an accompanying release, the UN rights chief Volker Türk urged Israel to comply with international law. He warned that there would be a “due reckoning with respect to allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies…” (Photo: WAFA via Jurist)

North America

Vote for ‘Killer Kamala.’ It’s important.

With UN aid agencies and humanitarian organizations warning of an “apocalyptic” scenario in North Gaza, the Biden administration faces a lawsuit charging complicity with genocide. The “pause” that the White House has imposed on some arms shipments to Israel by no means absolves the administration of moral (or legal) culpability. However, it may have had the effect of restraining Benjamin Netanyahu’s maximalist plans to cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians altogether. President Trump meanwhile recognized Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and launched the “Abraham Accords“—predicated on betrayal of the Palestinians by the Arab leadership. His 2019 executive order officially embraced the propagandistic conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and he now calls for complete repression (including by the military) of Palestine solidarity protests. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who was his Middle East pointman, is now openly backing the cleansing of Gaza of all Palestinians, while his ultra-Zionist former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is an open advocate of Israeli annexation of the West Bank and destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque. As Trump accuses Biden of “holding back” Israel, it is clear that Netanyahu and his most hardline cabinet members like Itamar Ben-Gvirare openly rooting for him—as is the Israel Lobby in DC. In Episode 250 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg urges that the Abandon Harris campaign, however laudable its professed aims, can at this point only abet a Trump victory and is therefore inimical to Palestinian survival. (Photo: Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder via Oklahoma Voice)

Palestine

Marwan Barghouti beaten in Israeli prison: report

The Commission of Detainees & Ex-Detainee Affairs, a Palestinian prisoner rights organization, reported that Israeli prison staff brutally assaulted Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian political leader and member of the Central Committee of Fatah. During a visit to Megiddo prison, Barghouti’s lawyer learned of the apparent assault, which took place Sept. 9 in a solitary confinement cell. The attack led to injuries to his head, ribs, and arms, resulting in bleeding from his ear and severe pain in his upper body. The report says that Barghouti has struggled with motor function and suffered ear infections due to being denied medical assistance. In the past year, Barghouti had already been assaulted twice. He has been held in solitary confinement since the start of the Gaza war. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Palestine

UN human rights chief: Gaza faces ‘darkest moment’

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that “the darkest moment of the Gaza conflict is unfolding in the north of the Strip.” Calling for urgent action by the international community, Türk stated: “Unimaginably, the situation is getting worse by the day. The Israeli Government’s…practices in northern Gaza risk emptying the area of all Palestinians. We are facing what could amount to…crimes against humanity.” Türk asserted that under the Geneva Convention, member states have “an obligation to act when a serious violation of international humanitarian law has been committed.” (Photo: badwanart0/Pixabay via Jurist)

Greater Middle East

Podcast: neither Jewish State nor Islamic Republic

Israel’s long-awaited strikes on Iran targeted military and industrial installations in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam, with air-strikes also reported in the Syrian cities of Damascus and Homs. It is now Iran’s turn to retaliate in the escalatory tit-for-tat game, as the brink of regional and even world war looms ever closer. In Episode 249 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg advocates a neither/nor position that rejects the militaristic and reactionary regimes of both Zionism and political Islam, and looks to a secular order in the Middle East. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: @iranprotest2019)

Palestine

Anti-Semitism versus anti-Zionism: beyond parsing III

In Episode 248 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines the New York Times coverage of the ugly turn in the pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University, and warns against the targeting of Jews in the guise of a misguided supposed “anti-Zionism.” The ongoing genocide in Gaza urgently demands protest, but just as urgently demands tactically and analytically astute protest that does not play into the cynical weaponization of the accusation of anti-Semitism by Zionist propaganda. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image via frgdr Blog. Hebrew lettering in background spells names of places in Europe where Jews were exterminated.)