ALERT Main Israel/Hamas/Gaza Thread

jward

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Turkey aims UNGA meeting for Palestine
hurriyetdailynews.com

3-4 minutes



SERKAN DEMİRTAŞ
  • May 17 2021
Turkey aims UNGA meeting for Palestine
As expected, the United Nations Security Council was prevented from producing any concrete measures to stop Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians and the holy sites in Jerusalem. The council was scheduled to hold its meeting yesterday, which was blocked by the United States twice in the past week.
Let alone a Security Council resolution in the face of increased civilian death toll resulting from indiscriminate Israeli aggression, the U.S. also blocked a U.N. presidential statement. This support encourages the Israeli government’s attacks.

The death toll is increasing as diplomatic obstacles persist. Around 181 Palestinians were reportedly killed by the Israeli security forces, which have destroyed around 200 premises and houses in Gaza, including health institutions and a media tower. Israeli attacks lead to a more severe humanitarian picture as thousands of Palestinians had to leave their homes in Gaza. They also targeted a media office in Gaza in a direct blow against the freedom of the media.
What the international community can do against these is limited. EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell has admitted that the EU has no role to play when it comes to stopping the Israeli attacks, although he could secure a meeting of the foreign ministers next week.

The Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held an extraordinary executive-committee meeting on May 16, with no expectation that its resolutions will have an effect on Israel. It will be seen to what extent the ongoing crisis will affect the normalization process between Israel and some Arab countries as well.
As Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told his counterparts at the virtual meeting, Turkey is trying to take the lead in mobilizing the international community as it did in 2018 after the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Convening the U.N. General Assembly seems to be Turkey’s primary objective. As known, the General Assembly can be called for a special meeting with the signatures of more than half countries represented at the U.N. Volkan Bozkır, a former senior Turkish diplomat who is currently the president of the U.N. General Assembly, can facilitate such a meeting, Ankara believes.

There are expectations that the U.N. General Assembly can meet this week, and Çavuşoğlu is planning to physically attend it. Plus, the grave consequences of the Israeli attacks can be brought to the attention of the U.N. Human Rights Commission as well as UNESCO and other relevant bodies.
The main message that Turkey has been giving is that the international community has a duty and responsibility towards the protection of the Palestinians. It’s not perhaps possible to deploy a peace force to Jerusalem, but it’s always possible to impose a united and decisive diplomatic pressure on Israel.

Serkan Demirtaş, unga, palestine,
Posted for fair use
 

jward

passin' thru
ETA another spin on this:
Guy Elster
@guyelster

16m


#BREAKING Blinken says US has yet to see justification from Israel for destroying the media tower in #Gaza
___________________________________________

AFP News Agency
@AFP

3m

#UPDATE US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Israel and Palestinians to "protect civilians, especially children", reiterating that Israel "as a democracy has an extra burden" to do so

_______________________________________________

John Hudson
@John_Hudson

15m


Blinken asked if he found Israeli claims credible about why the IDF blew up the building housing the AP office [Israeli officials said they briefed US]. "I have not seen any information provided," he said. He left it to others to judge any intel that may have been shared
 
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jward

passin' thru
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv

2m

NEW - Turkey's Erdogan called Pope Francis over Israel-Palestine conflict.

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Turkey's Erdogan urges the pope to help end Israel's "massacre", as human rights groups ask the ICC to investigate Israel's bombing of al-Jalaa tower which housed media organisations including Al Jazeera - as a possible war crime. LIVE updates: http://aje.io/3pt45
View: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1394229822663139328?s=20
 

jward

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Netanyahu Torches Notion AP Reporters Who Escaped Razed Building Were 'Lucky' by Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis

3 minutes


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Sunday against those who claimed Associated Press reporters were “lucky” to get out before an Israeli airstrike was set to hit their Gaza City bureau.
“The interesting thing is I would say that, you know, all the journalists, one of the, I think, AP journalists said we were lucky to get out,” Netanyahu said on CBS News’s “Face The Nation.”
“No, you weren’t lucky to get out. It wasn’t luck,” Netanyahu continued. “It’s because we took special pains to call people in those buildings to make sure that the premises were vacated. And that’s why we brought down that building.”
“And look, you have your own experiences, I think, in Mosul - Fallujah - Afghanistan,” he added. “I think you can appreciate the efforts we go through in dense urban fighting when terrorists are targeting civilians who are hiding behind civilians, how difficult that is. We do our best to avoid civilian casualties. And we did that yesterday with that building as well.”
The Israeli Defense Forces razed the building because it housed a Hamas intelligence office—something the AP has denied knowing.

“We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza,” AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a statement. "The Israeli government says the building contained Hamas military intelligence assets. We have called on the Israeli government to put forward the evidence. AP’s bureau has been in this building for 15 years. We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building. This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk."


Pointing to a 2014 report in The Atlantic, readers found that hard to believe.
In the piece, "a reporter in the region detailed a long and questionable history between the AP and the jihadist group, critics observed," according to Fox News.

"'When Hamas’s leaders surveyed their assets before this summer’s round of fighting, they knew that among those assets was the international press. The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn’t report it,' the article reads.

"The journalist at the time claimed that Hamas fighters would regularly "burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff—and the AP wouldn’t report it.'"

Posted For Fair Use
 

jward

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AFP News Agency
@AFP

1h

#BREAKING US asks Israel to provide 'justification' for strike on media building: Blinken
View: https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1394260644904456192?s=20


#UPDATE US Secretary of State Antony #Blinken says Washington has requested Israel provide "additional details regarding the justification" for an air strike Saturday on a building in Gaza housing Al Jazeera television and news agency The Associated Press http://u.afp.com/UeGs
View: https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1394287054452887554?s=20
 

vestige

Deceased
AFP News Agency
@AFP

1h

#BREAKING US asks Israel to provide 'justification' for strike on media building: Blinken
View: https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1394260644904456192?s=20


#UPDATE US Secretary of State Antony #Blinken says Washington has requested Israel provide "additional details regarding the justification" for an air strike Saturday on a building in Gaza housing Al Jazeera television and news agency The Associated Press http://u.afp.com/UeGs
View: https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1394287054452887554?s=20
BFYTW
 

jward

passin' thru
blinken's aptly named

barrons.com

Blinken Urges Israel And Palestinians To 'Protect Civilians' And Children
AFP - Agence France Presse

2-3 minutes


Text size

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Israel and Palestinians to "protect civilians, especially children", reiterating that Israel "as a democracy has an extra burden" to do so.

"We'll continue to conduct intensive diplomacy to bring this current cycle of violence to an end" and "we are ready to lend support, if the parties seek a ceasefire", Blinken told a press conference in Copenhagen.

He reiterated Washington's support for Israel's right "to defend itself", stressing there was "no equivalence between a terrorist group indiscriminately firing rockets at civilians and a country defending its people from those attacks."

"So we call on Hamas and other groups in Gaza to end the rocket attacks immediately."

However, he added that "Israel as a democracy has an extra burden to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties."

That includes journalists, Blinken said, referring to an Israeli air strike on Saturday that destroyed a building in Gaza housing international media outlets Al Jazeera television and US news agency The Associated Press.

The top US diplomat reiterated Washington's concerns about protecting the media, but stopped short of condemning the strike.

He said Washington had requested Israel provide "additional details regarding the justification" for the strike.

Blinken said he had not personally seen any information shared by Israeli authorities, and therefore did not want to comment on the legitimacy of the strike.


"Israel has a special responsibility to protect civilians in the course of its self-defence, and that most certainly includes journalists," he said.

Blinken also defended Washington's move to block a UN Security Council declaration calling for an end to the hostilities.

"We're not standing in the way of diplomacy," Blinken stressed.
 
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jward

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hmm
FJ
@Natsecjeff

1m


IMPORTANT: IDF seems to be ready to declassify evidence that would prove that AP and Al-Jazeera building in Gaza was being used by Hamas military intelligence. Previously Israeli sources said Israel has shared evidence with Washington privately and Biden admin was satisfied.
 

jward

passin' thru




Evan Kohlmann
@IntelTweet

46s


The military wing of the Palestinian Hamas movement has claimed responsibility for an unusual alleged rocket attack targeting Urim SIGINT Base, an Israeli intelligence facility run by Unit 8200, the vaunted signal intel/hacker unit of the Israeli military.
 

jward

passin' thru
In what sense, Vector--- that they'd run the risk of being candid about the role the global media plays as propaganda arms of the new world order, or ?
Of course they co-existed in those buildings, and of course they knew it.. . ..

 
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