The US is flying drones over the Gaza Strip to help gather intelligence on the locations of hostages taken by the Hamas Movement and other Palestinian armed factions during the October 7 surprise attack, Reuters reported on November 3, citing a pair of United States officials.
Everyone has spoken out about the IOC, and so will we (Today in the “It’s different” section — perhaps a contender for the title of champion. The International Olympic Committee warned athletes against discrimination against Israel, DPA reports.
A week ago I posted on this page an admission by IDF Brigadier General Barak Hiram that he himself gave the orders to use tank’s fire in hostage situations in Kibbutz Be-eri. It becomes evidently clear that many of the Israeli casualties in Be-eri as well as other places, were the outcome of Israel prioritising killing Hamas militants over saving the lives of hostages (Hannibal Directive). In practice it was Israel that was responsible for many Israeli civilians fatalities and it is Israel reckless operation and deployment of tanks and anti tank missiles in hostages situation that is responsible for the devastation in Kibbutz Be-eri and other 7 October Gaza Ring theatres.
Disturbingly Israel then brought foreign press to these devastated scenes and pointing at Hamas barbarism knowing very well that it was the deployment of Israeli tanks, anti tank missiles and heavy machine-guns that was responsible for the carnage and the civilian’s death…
Today we learned that an Israeli battalion commander colonel Salman Habka died in Gaza yesterday. Colonel Habka was fighting in Be-eri on 7 October and he confirmed to Israeli Ynet that IDF Bri. Genn Barak Hiram gave him the order to shoot tank shells into the Kibbutz buildings.
“In an interview held after the battle in Be-eri in which he (Col Habka) participated, the late Habka said: ‘The tanks are here, the tanks are near us. I arrive in Be-eri under the command of Bri. Gen. You Barak Hiram and the first thing he ordered me to do was to fire a shell inside a house. The first question that comes to your mind is if there are hostages there. We did all the preliminary actions before we decided to fire a shell into a house.” (ynet 2/112023)
The question you may want to ask is what were those ‘preliminary actions,’ because many hostages were found dead after this tank’s shelling… around 83 Israelis died in Be-eri…
In an interview after the battle in Bari in which he participated, the late Habaka said: “The tanks are here, the tanks are next to us. I arrive in Bari, pass Brigadier General Barak Hiram and the first thing he demands of me is to fire a shell inside the house. The first question that comes to you is if there are any hostages there. We did all the preliminary operations before we decided to fire a shell into a house
As soon as we fired shells into houses, we managed to go from house to house, to free the hostages, and that was basically how the fighting was until the evening, inside the settlement and in the streets,” the late Habaka continued. “I understand one thing. As soon as people hear the grubs of the tanks, they suddenly have a moment of security.”
Craig Mokhiber has the courage that every international civil servant should have. He has stepped down from his post as Chief of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in protest against the failure of the United Nations to stop the genocide being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians. I have known Craig since 1992 and consider him a friend, an intellectually honest, constructive and optimistic UN official, a model for others. But there are times when officials have to step down, because the Organization has allowed itself to be hijacked. Two other friends stepped down from their Assistant-Secretary-General posts in the 1990’s — Denis Halliday and Hans Christoph von Sponeck — because of the complicity of the United Nations in the US-led genocide of Iraq pursuant to thoroughly criminal “sanctions” that killed over a million human beings.
This is a summary of what was said by UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today’s press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva
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