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workersolidarity · 2 months

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[ 📹 Scenes of massive destruction and smoke filled rooms resulting from a Zionist missile strike on the Al-Helu Hospital, adjacent to the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. Patients being treated who were in the building at the time of the attack are escorted out to safety.]

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9 NEW MASSACRES OF PALESTINIAN FAMILIES ON DAY 169 OF "ISRAEL'S" ONGOING WAR OF GENOCIDE IN GAZA

On the 169th day of "Israel's" ongoing war of genocide against the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 9 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of at least 82 Palestinians, and wounding another 110 others, over the previous 24-hours.

Local ambulance and civil defense personnel remain unable to reach many of the victims, who remain trapped under the rubble of local buildings and residential homes, while the IOF continues heavily bombing and shelling in the vicinity of the sites of "Israeli" massacres.

Even as the attacks on Palestinian civilians by the occupation army increased, IOF warplanes continued to fire missiles into southern Lebanon, bombing several sites over the last day.

According to reports, Zionist warplanes bombed the villages of Ayta ash-Shaab, Al-Khiyam, and Al-Taybeh, while occupation artillery forces shelled the towns of Mari, Aitaroun and Houla in southern Lebanon.

At the same time, occupation reconnaissance aircraft flew over the coastal Lebanese city of Tyre, as well as Bint Jbeil and over the Litani River, while also dropping flares over nearby border villages.

Meanwhile, the genocide in the Gaza Strip continues unabated, with IOF aircraft resuming and even intensifying airstrikes targeting nearly every sector of the Palestinian enclave.

In just one example of the occupation's war crimes, Zionist artillery forces shelled a residential home belonging to the Al-Qouqa family, northwest of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of at least 10 civilians.

Similarly, an "Israeli" drone fired a missile towards a group of civilians in the Al-Zana neighborhood, east of Khan Yunis, located in south-central Gaza, killing at least three civilians who's bodies were taken to the European Gaza Hospital.

In the south of Gaza, occupation warplanes bombed the Abu Thabet family residence in the Nasr neighborhood of Rafah, martyring no less than 8 civilians and wounding several others.

In the meantime, the "Israeli" occupation army resumed its bombardment of the Al-Rimal neighborhood, north of Gaza City, in the vicinity of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, firing several missiles alongside intense artillery shelling, which witnesses said led to thick, black smoke rising from the complex and nearby buildings.

Local medical sources with Al-Shifa Hospital told Palestinian news agency WAFA that three civilian patients had died as a result of the occupation army's fifth consecutive day of blockading and besieging of the hospital, preventing crucial medical supplies, medicines, food and fuel from reaching the complex. Families of the hospital's patients appealed to the media and occupation authorities to allow the transfer of sick or wounded relatives, in desperate need of proper medical care and treatments, to other hospitals not under attack.

Elsewhere, Zionist air forces bombed the residential home of the Abu Eisha family in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, while at the same time, occupation airstrikes also targeted homes and buildings in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, as well as several sites in Jabalia and Beit Lahia in Gaza's north.

In Deir al-Balah, occupation aircraft bombed a residential home east of the city, in the central Gaza Strip, wounding a woman, while "Israel's" intense bombardment also targeted the Al-Baraka neighborhood, killing several civilians and wounding a number of others.

Simultaneously, Zionist soldiers fired live bullets towards displaced Palestinian civilians in the Al-Mawasi neighborhood near Al-Qarara, northwest of the city of Khan Yunis, wounding dozens of people.

Another "Israeli" occupation fighter jet bombed a two-story residential building in the Al-Mirage area, north of Rafah city, martyring at least five Palestinians and wounding several others.

Air forces with the occupation army also bombarded several sites in Al-Qarara, dealing significant damage to the city, according to local witnesses.

While in yet another crime, Zionist occupation forces bombed a site near the Mediterranean beach, north of Rafah, killing at least one Palestinian man who was transported to the Al-Kuwaiti Hospital.

At the same time, occupation aircraft and artillery shelling targeted the Ayad family home in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, west of Gaza City, killing two civilians and wounding a number of others.

Occupation artillery forces also resumed the bombardment of the eastern neighborhoods of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, while bombing and shelling also intensified in the Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza.

At least one civilian shot by an occupation sniper in the village of Mughragha, north of Al-Nuseirat.

In the southern Gazan city of Rafah, local paramedic crews recovered the bodies of four martyred children as a result of "Israel's" intensifying bombing of the city, while just north of Rafah, occupation aircraft bombarded a residential home inhabited by a local family, resulting in 5 deaths and 7 injuries.

In another drone strike, an occupation quadcopter fired a missile towards agricultural lands adjacent to the municipal stadium in the Al-Mawasi neighborhood, west of Rafah city, murdering displaced 22 year-old Abdul Karim Saeed Daoud Talib, who was a resident of Jabalia, and wounding another six others.

As a result of "Israel's" ongoing war of genocide against the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, the endlessly rising death toll has now exceeded 32'070 martyrs, more than 25'000 of which being women and children according to the United States Pentagon, while another 74'298 civilians have been wounded in "Israeli" attacks on Gaza, with the current round of Zionist aggression beginning on October 7th, 2023.

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political-affairs · 11 years

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Innocent People Massacres in Syria

Statement: At least 108 people have been documented as killed and up to 400 more are likely to have died in an almost week-long offensive by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Detail: On May 25, 2012, 108 people were murdered in the Syrian town of Houla. Gruesome videos of woman and children slaughtered in their homes spread like wildfire across the Internet, the United Nations issued a report that attempted to discern exactly what happened, and the United States expelled Syria's top diplomat in Washington. ... Fast-forward 11 months: The Syrian military has reportedly launched an offensive in the Damascus suburbs of Jdeidet al-Fadl and Jdeidet al-Artouz -- part of a broader effort to secure the capital from rebel assault -- and the Local Coordination Committees of Syria are reporting that more than 400 people have been massacred. Other opposition networks cite a lower death toll, but still point to a significant loss of life: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, for instance, is reporting that 101 people have been documented killed, but that the final death toll could exceed 250 Syrians. The two events may be equally horrifying, but there are few similarities in the international response to them. The coverage of Jdeidet al-Fadl and Jdeidet al-Artouz has been limited to a few newspaper articles -- top U.S. officials have not felt compelled to respond, and the United Nations has not sprung into action. Part of the reason for the lack of an international response this time around is the absence of any information coming from the Damascus suburbs. Even though Jdeidet al-Artouz is only about 10 miles from the center of Damascus, the Syrian military has locked down the area -- no journalists or NGOs have been able to get close enough to report on what is going on. The lockdown is also preventing information from getting out of the towns, which explains the murkiness about the casualty figures. Even so, a few videos have leaked out, purporting to show dead men, women, and children. But it's hard to avoid another conclusion: The international community is simply growing desensitized to reports of massacres in Syria. At the time of the Houla massacre, the conflict had killed an estimated 10,000 Syrians -- 11 months later, the United Nations estimates the death toll at more than 70,000 people. In the face of such unrelenting violence, the world simply looks away. http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/04/22/has_the_world_stopped_caring_about_massacres_in_syria

#United States #United Nations #Syria #Jdeidet al-Fadl #Jdeidet al-Artouz #Innocent People Massacres in Syria #Houla #Damascus #Bashar al-Assad

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clubofinfo · 6 years

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Expert: Writing in the Mail on Sunday, journalist Peter Hitchens commented last month on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR): Talking of war, and Syria, many of you may have noticed frequent references in the media to a body called the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”, often quoted as if it is an impartial source of information about that complicated conflict, in which the British government clearly takes sides. The “Observatory” says on its website that it is “not associated or linked to any political body” To which I reply: Is Boris Johnson’s Foreign Office not a political body? Because the FO just confirmed to me that “the UK funded a project worth £194,769.60 to provide the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights with communications equipment and cameras.” That’s quite a lot, isn’t it? I love the precision of that 60p. Your taxes, impartially, at work. This figure was confirmed in communication with the Foreign Office by independent political journalist Ian Sinclair.1 In 2011, Reuters reported that Rami Abdulrahman is ‘the fast-talking director of arguably Syria’s most high-profile human rights group’, SOHR: When he isn’t fielding calls from international media, Abdulrahman is a few minutes down the road at his clothes shop, which he runs with his wife. Given the tinpot nature of the organisation, SOHR’s influence is astonishing: Cited by virtually every major news outlet since an uprising against the iron rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March, the observatory has been a key source of news on the events in Syria. Described by Reuters as an ‘opposition group’, SOHR is openly pro-regime change: After three short spells in prison in Syria for pro-democracy activism, Abdulrahman came to Britain in 2000 fearing a longer, fourth jail term. “I came to Britain the day Hafez al-Assad died, and I’ll return when Bashar al-Assad goes”. In December 2011, Stratfor, an influential research institute formed of former US security officials, cautioned: Most of the [Syrian] opposition’s more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue … revealing more about the opposition’s weaknesses than the level of instability inside the Syrian regime. Reports from SOHR and other opposition groups, ‘like those from the regime, should be viewed with skepticism’, Stratfor argued: ‘the opposition understands that it needs external support, specifically financial support, if it is to be a more robust movement than it is now. To that end, it has every reason to present the facts on the ground in a way that makes the case for foreign backing.’ The Los Angeles Times described SOHR as ‘a pro-opposition watchdog’. And yet, as Reuters reported, Abdulrahman claims neutrality: “I’m between two fires. But it shows I’m being neutral if both sides complain,” he said, insisting he accepts no funding and runs the observatory on a voluntary basis. Two years later, the New York Times described a modified funding model: Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify. Thanks to Hitchens, we now know that the country in question is Britain and the funding in 2012 was £194,769.60. In 2013, we compared the reflexive respect afforded SOHR with the earlier casual rejection of reports on the death toll in Iraq published in 2004 and 2006 by the Lancet, the world’s leading medical journal: Figures supplied by SOHR, an organisation openly biased in favour of the Syrian “rebels” and Western intervention is presented as sober fact by… the world’s leading news agencies. No concerns here about methodology, sample sizes, “main street bias” and other alleged concerns thrown at the Lancet studies by critics. In 2004, one of the Lancet co-authors, Gilbert Burnham of the prestigious Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, told us: Our data have been back and forth between many reviewers at the Lancet and here in the school (chair of Biostatistics Dept), so we have the scientific strength to say what we have said with great certainty. I doubt any Lancet paper has gotten as much close inspection in recent years as this one has!2 Despite this, the Lancet reports were subjected to ceaseless attacks from the US and UK governments, and dismissal by corporate journalists. David Aaronovitch wrote in The Times: And Harold Pinter invents a statistic. “At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraqi insurgency began.” This is probably some mangling of a controversial estimate of Iraqi civilian fatalities published in The Lancet in 2004 and based, it was claimed, on standard epidemiological methods.3 An op-ed in the Washington Times commented in December 2004: Or how about the constantly cited figure of 100,000 Iraqis killed by Americans since the war began, a statistic that is thrown about with total and irresponsible abandon by opponents of the war.4 As we described at the time, the ‘mainstream’ hosted all manner of confused and baseless criticisms of this kind. By contrast, a recent BBC article noted of the Syrian war: Over seven years of war, more than 400,000 people have been killed or reported missing, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. No-one, it seems, would dream of challenging such a high figure supplied by a clothes shop owner supporting regime change in Syria from Coventry. Nobody challenges SOHR’s methodology, or complains of statistics being thrown about with irresponsible abandon. Why? Because the 2004 and 2006 Lancet reports seriously undermined the US-UK case for conquering Iraq, whereas a high Syria death toll is used to damn the Assad government and to make the case for Western ‘intervention’. In a 2015 interview with RT, Abdulrahman was asked how he could trust the hundreds of ‘activists’ supplying information from Syria. Claiming that ‘I know all of the activists working for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’, Abdulrahman said that he had last visited Syria in 2000. He added: ‘But I know some of the Observatory activists through common friends.’ Innumerable ‘mainstream’ reports of atrocities blamed on Syrian government and Russian forces have used SOHR as a key source. One of the highest profile claims concerned an alleged massacre of 108 people, including 49 children, in Houla, Syria on May 27, 2012. The claim dominated the Independent on Sunday‘s front cover, which read: SYRIA: THE WORLD LOOKS THE OTHER WAY. WILL YOU? The text beneath read: There is, of course, supposed to be a ceasefire, which the brutal Assad regime simply ignores. And the international community? It just averts its gaze. Will you do the same? Or will the sickening fate of these innocent children make you very, very angry? As so often, SOHR loomed large in these accusations. The BBC reported: The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 90 people had died in the 24 hours since midday on Friday. The Guardian described how SOHR was condemning Western ‘silence’: The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights issued an unusually harsh statement in the wake of the deaths, accusing Arab nations and the international community of being “partners” in the killing “because of their silence about the massacres that the Syrian regime has committed”. But the picture was not quite so clear cut. Two weeks later, the BBC reported the head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood, as saying of Houla: ‘the circumstances that led to these tragic killings are still unclear’. Mood commented significantly: Whatever I learned on the ground in Syria… is that I should not jump to conclusions. On June 27, a UN Commission of Inquiry said that in apportioning blame, it ‘could not rule out any of these possibilities’: local militia possibly operating together with, or with the acquiescence of, government security forces; anti-government forces seeking to escalate the conflict; or foreign groups with unknown affiliation. In August of the same year, UN investigators released a further report which stated that they had ‘a reasonable basis to believe that the perpetrators… were aligned to the Government’. (Our emphasis) SOHR is omnipresent in the great Syrian atrocity claims that have gripped our media for years. On April 14, Donald Trump bombed Syria in response to an alleged Syrian government chemical weapons attack on Douma one week earlier. Reuters reported: Heavy air strikes on the Syrian rebel-held town of Douma killed 27 people including five children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. On April 7, 2017, Trump launched a missile assault on Syria just 72 hours after an alleged chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun. Reuters reported: The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack killed at least 58 people and was believed to have been carried out by Syrian government jets. It caused many people to choke and some to foam at the mouth. Director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters the assessment that Syrian government warplanes were to blame was based on several factors such as the type of aircraft, including Sukhoi 22 jets, that carried out the raid. In August 2013, Barack Obama came close to launching a massive attack on Syria in response to an alleged Syrian government chemical weapons attack on Ghouta. The BBC reported: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based group that gets its information from a network of activists across Syria, later said it had confirmed at least 502 deaths. The Los Angeles Times reported: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, generally regarded as one of the most reliable sources of information on casualty figures in Syria, says it has confirmed 502 deaths, including 80 children and 137 women. Last February, the BBC reported: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said at least 250 people had been killed in [Syrian government and Russian] air strikes and artillery fire since then. It said it was the highest 48-hour death toll since a 2013 chemical attack on the besieged enclave. The power of these claims lies in the fact that Western journalists have been unable to report from ‘rebel’-held areas in Syria. Veteran Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn made the point: All wars always produce phony atrocity stories – along with real atrocities. But in the Syrian case fabricated news and one-sided reporting have taken over the news agenda to a degree probably not seen since the First World War… The real reason that reporting of the Syrian conflict has been so inadequate is that Western news organisations have almost entirely outsourced their coverage to the rebel side. ‘Rebel’ claims relayed by SOHR and others have been uncontested because they originated from ‘areas controlled by people so dangerous no foreign journalist dare set foot among them’. Many atrocity claims relayed by SOHR and others have been sourced from the White Helmets group in Syria. Former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook commented: In the western corporate media narrative, the White Helmets are a group of dedicated and selfless rescue workers. They are supposedly the humanitarians on whose behalf a western intervention in Syria would have been justified – before, that is, Syrian leader Bashar Assad queered their pitch by inviting in Russia. However, there are problems with the White Helmets. They operate only in rebel – read: mainly al-Qaeda and ISIS-held – areas of Syria, and plenty of evidence shows that they are funded by the UK and US to advance both countries’ far-from-humanitarian policy objectives in Syria. In 2016, political analyst Max Blumenthal wrote: The White Helmets were founded in collaboration with USAID’s Office of Transitional Initiatives—the wing that has promoted regime change around the world—and have been provided with $23 million in funding from the department. Liberal corporate journalists and politicians have been impressed by the fact that SOHR and White Helmets claims have been supported by ostensibly forensic analysis supplied by the Bellingcat website, which publishes ‘citizen journalist’ investigations. As we noted in a recent alert, Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is funded by the US government and is ‘a notorious vehicle for US soft power’. We could link to thousands of corporate media articles citing SOHR as a source. As in the above examples, the vast majority of these claims are directed at the same targets – the Syrian government and its Russian ally. To monitor the BBC website in 2013, for example, was to witness what appeared to be a relentless propaganda campaign promoting yet one more Western ‘humanitarian intervention’. This would seem to be an extraordinary scandal, not just for the BBC, not just for British corporate media and democracy, but for media and democracy globally. And yet, our media database search finds exactly one national UK newspaper article containing the terms ‘Peter Hitchens’ and ‘Syrian Observatory’. That, of course, was the original May 13 piece in the Mail on Sunday in which Hitchens reported the UK government’s £194,769.60 funding of SOHR. His report has been ignored. * Email to Media Lens, May 17, 2018. * Dr. Gilbert Burnham, email to Media Lens, October 30, 2004. * Aaronovitch, ‘The great war of words,’ The Times, March 18, 2006. * Helle Dale, ‘Biased coverage in Iraq,’ Washington Times, December 1, 2004. http://clubof.info/

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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Kofi Annan Fast Facts

(CNN)Here’s a look at the life of Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Birth place: Kumasi, Ghana

Birth name: Kofi Atta Annan

Father: Henry Reginald Annan, provincial governor in Ghana

Mother: Victoria Annan

Marriages: Nane (Lagergren) Annan (1984-present); Titi Alakija (1965-1983, divorced)

Children: with Nane Lagergren Annan: Nina (stepdaughter); with Titi Alakija: Kojo, Ama

Education: University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, B.A. in economics, 1961; Attended Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva, Switzerland, 1961-1962; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan Fellow, M.S. in management, 1971-1972

Other Facts: Is descended from tribal chiefs on both sides of his parents.

Had a twin sister, Efua Atta, who died in 1991. They shared the middle name Atta, which means twin in the Ghanaian language of Akan.

Is fluent in French, English and several African languages.

Studied at Macalester College on a Ford Foundation scholarship.

Spent almost his entire career working for the United Nations.

Was the first secretary-general to be elected from the ranks of the United Nations staffers.

Timeline: 1962 – Joins the UN as a budget officer with the World Health Organization in Geneva.

1960s-1980s – Serves with various UN agencies, including the Economic Commission for Africa, the United Nations Emergency Force and the High Commissioner for Refugees.

1974-1976 – Leaves the United Nations briefly to serve as managing director of the Ghana Tourist Development Company.

1987-1990 – Serves as assistant secretary-general for Human Resources Management and security coordinator for the United Nations.

1990-1992 – Serves as assistant secretary-general for Programme Planning, Budget and Finance, and controller.

March 1993-February 1994 – Serves as assistant secretary-general for Peacekeeping Operations.

1994-1995 and April 1996-December 1996 – Serves as under-secretary-general.

December 1996 – Is appointed to be the next secretary-general of the United Nations.

January 1, 1997-December 31, 2006 – Serves as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations.

June 29, 2001 – Is appointed to a second term as secretary-general, beginning January 1, 2002.

December 10, 2001 – Is awarded, along with the United Nations, the Nobel Peace Prize “for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.”

2007 – Founds the Kofi Annan Foundation, a non-profit promoting global sustainable development, peace and security.

2007 – Chairs the ten-member advocacy group, the Africa Progress Panel.

October 17, 2007-March 2010 – Leader of the non-profit think-tank Global Humanitarian Forum, based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Forum ceases operations on March 31, 2010.

October 29, 2007 – Is appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation, an organization which looks for resolutions to global issues.

January 13, 2008 – Accepts invitation from Ghana’s president, John Kufuor, to mediate an election dispute in Kenya.

March 1, 2008 – Is able to get Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to agree on a power-sharing government.

August 11, 2008 – Becomes chancellor of the University of Ghana.

November 22, 2008 – Annan, along with former US President Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, attempt to visit Zimbabwe to gauge the humanitarian situation there. They are denied entry. The three are members of The Elders, a humanitarian group of a dozen leaders and activists of worldwide stature formed by Nelson Mandela to foster peace in world conflicts.

December 7, 2008 – Annan, Carter, and Machel release a report stating that Zimbabwe needs new leadership and call for more international aid for Zimbabwe’s sick and hungry. Their report is based on interviews with politicians, aid workers, and others since they are not allowed in the country.

February 23, 2012 – The United Nations announces the appointment of Annan as joint special envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on the Syrian crisis.

March 11, 2012 – Annan leaves Syria after two days of talks with President Bashar al-Assad. Annan proposes a cease-fire, the release of detainees and allowing unfettered access to agencies such as the Red Cross to deliver much needed aid.

March 13, 2012 – In Turkey, Annan meets with government officials and Syrian opposition members including Burhan Ghalioun, chairman of the Syrian National Council.

March 16, 2012 – Annan briefs the UN Security Council on the situation in Syria and announces he is sending a mission to Damascus to discuss a plan for international monitors to end the daily violence engulfing the country.

March 24, 2012 – Annan arrives in Moscow in an effort to seek Russian help securing a cease-fire in Syria.

March 27, 2012 – The United Nations announces that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accepts Annan’s six-point peace plan.

April 12, 2012 – Annan tells the United Nations that Syria has not fully complied with the terms of the cease-fire, which was worked out in the March peace plan and went into effect on April 10.

May 28, 2012 – Arrives in Damascus demanding accountability for the massacre at Houla and the implementation of the six-point peace plan worked out in March.

August 2, 2012 – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announces that Joint UN-Arab League Special Envoy for Syria Kofi Annan will not renew his mandate when it expires at the end of August. Mr. Annan is effectively resigning the post.

September 4, 2012 – Releases a memoir called “Interventions: A Life in War and Peace.” The book is written with Nader Mousavizadeh.

August 2016 – Chairs an advisory commission on the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine, Myanmar. The commission is set up by the Myanmar government along with the Kofi Annan Foundation.