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Israel says to expand military operations in Rafah, 29k Palestinians killed

By
IFP Media Wire
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Gaza War

The Muslim holy month is expected to start on March 10 or 11 and Gantz’s comments appear to be the clearest deadline yet for Israeli military action in the southern Gaza city, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are taking shelter near the Egyptian border.

“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know — if by Ramadan our hostages are not home — the fighting will continue to the Rafah area,” Gantz told a gathering of American Jewish organizations in Jerusalem.

“We will do so in a coordinated manner, facilitating the evacuation of civilians in dialogue with our American and Egyptian partners to minimize civilian casualties.”

Israel has announced it plans to expand its ground operations into Rafah, but there is growing concern that the roughly 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering there will have nowhere to go.

“To those saying the price is too high, I say this very clearly: Hamas has a choice — they can surrender, release the hostages, and the citizens of Gaza will be able to celebrate the holy holiday of Ramadan,” Gantz added.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. The ensuing Israeli attacks have killed nearly 29,000 and caused mass destruction and shortages of necessities, while less than 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Israel seeking to restrict Palestinian access to Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan: Report

By
IFP Media Wire
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Al Aqsa Mosque

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given his approval to the recommendations of far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, despite the security agency warning that restrictions on Palestinians’ access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan could add fuel to the fire.

“Despite warnings from the Shin Bet (internal security agency) of potential disturbances between Palestinians inside Israel and the Israeli police, Netanyahu agreed to a recommendation from Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir to limit the access of Palestinian faithful to the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the upcoming month of Ramadan,” Channel 13 reported.

The Netanyahu administration will make an official decision on this issue in the coming days, the broadcaster claimed.

“The entry of Palestinian faithful to the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan will be limited,” the channel reported, citing unidentified sources.

Several Israeli media outlets, including Channel 12, have reported in the last two days that the Shin Bet warned the government that prohibiting Palestinians from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan “could lead to major disturbances”.

The security agency warned that this decision could cause more “dangerous” disruption than the eruption of tensions in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and surrounding territories in 1948 when the State of Israel was declared.

Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, Israeli police have restricted Palestinian Muslims’ access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, particularly on Fridays.

Last Friday, despite Israeli restrictions, approximately 25,000 Palestinian faithful were able to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem to perform Friday prayers for the first time since the war.

This is the longest stretch of Fridays in a row that Palestinians have been barred by the Israeli authorities from offering prayers in the mosque since the start of the war on Oct. 7, an official in Jerusalem’s Islamic Endowments Department, who asked not to be named due to backlash from the Tel Aviv government, told Anadolu.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack. The ensuing Israeli attacks have killed nearly 29,000 and caused mass destruction and shortages of necessities, while less than 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Efforts to halt Israel’s four-month-old offensive on the Gaza Strip have been expressly complicated by Israel’s plans to launch a military operation in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where around 1.5 million people have sought refuge.

Prospects for a ceasefire before Ramadan further dimmed on Sunday, as mediator Qatar announced that separate truce talks have hit an impasse, while the US said that it would veto a possible United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution next week.

In addition to the risk that restrictions on Al-Aqsa could spark unrest in the occupied West Bank – where Israel has stepped up its near daily raids since the start of the war on 7 October – an offensive on Rafah in the lead up to Ramadan could further inflame the situation.

At least 398 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank in the last four months, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The last major Israeli offensive on Gaza was sparked by weeks of tension during Ramadan in May 2021, where hundreds of Palestinians were wounded as Israeli security forces carried out raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hamas had demanded that Israel withdraw its security forces from the complex, before launching some of its rockets from Gaza into Israel.

Israel then launched an 11-day offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 260 people and causing widespread destruction in the besieged enclave.

Over 400 detained in Russia while mourning death of Alexei Navalny

By
IFP Media Wire
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Alexei Navalny

The sudden death of Navalny, 47, was a crushing blow to many Russians, who had pinned their hopes for the future on President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe. Navalny remained vocal in his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin even after surviving a nerve agent poisoning and receiving multiple prison terms.

The news reverberated across the globe, and hundreds of people in dozens of Russian cities streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repressions with flowers and candles on Friday and Saturday to pay a tribute to the politician.

In over a dozen cities, police detained 401 people by Saturday night, according to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid.

More than 200 arrests were made in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, the group added. Among those detained there was Grigory Mikhnov-Voitenko, a priest of the Apostolic Orthodox Church — a religious group independent of the Russian Orthodox Church — who announced plans on social media to hold a memorial service for Navalny and was arrested on Saturday morning outside his home. He was charged with organizing a rally and placed in a holding cell in a police precinct, but was later hospitalized with a stroke, OVD-Info reported.

Courts in St. Petersburg have ordered 42 of those detained on Friday to serve from one to six days in jail, while nine others were fined, court officials said late on Saturday. In Moscow, at least six people were ordered to serve 15 days in jail, according to OVD-Info. One person was also jailed in the southern city of Krasnodar and two more in the city of Bryansk, the group added.

The news of Navalny’s death came a month before a presidential election in Russia that is widely expected to give Putin another six years in power. Questions about the cause of death lingered on Sunday, and it remained unclear when the authorities would release his body to his family.

Navalny’s team said Saturday that the politician was “murdered” and accused the authorities of deliberately stalling the release of the body, with Navalny’s mother and lawyers getting contradicting information from various institutions where they went in their quest to retrieve the body.

“They’re driving us around in circles and covering their tracks,” Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, stated on Saturday.

“Everything there is covered with cameras in the colony. Every step he took was filmed from all angles all these years. Each employee has a video recorder. In two days, there has been not a single video leaked or published. There is no room for uncertainty here,” Navalny’s closest ally and strategist Leonid Volkov stressed Sunday.

A note handed to Navalny’s mother stated that he died at 2:17 p.m. Friday, according to Yarmysh. Prison officials told his mother when she arrived at the penal colony Saturday that her son had perished from “sudden death syndrome”, Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Elon Musk says longer conflict strengthens Russia

By
IFP Media Wire
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Elon Musk

Responding to news that Russian forces were advancing into the strategically important Donbass town of Avdeevka, Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that “the longer this goes on, the better Russia will do”.

The Russian Defense Ministry has announced the liberation of the town, after a panicked retreat that cost Ukrainian forces some 1,500 men in just 24 hours. With Avdeevka taken, the ministry added that Russian forces will continue their offensive to “further liberate the Donetsk People’s Republic from Ukrainian nationalists”.

Ukrainian and American officials have blamed the loss of the city on the drying up of Western aid, while the Pentagon warned on Friday that the situation in Avdeevka could soon be repeated in “many other locations along the forward line”, if American lawmakers fail to authorize a new $60 billion package of arms, ammo, and training for Kiev.

In addition to the ammunition shortage, Ukraine is also grappling with the loss of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. This “critical” manpower deficit could soon result in a collapse along the entire front, the Washington Post reported earlier this month. Long before, the recently-ousted commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military, General Valery Zaluzhny, warned that the conflict had reached a “stalemate”, and that Russia’s larger population and greater resources placed it at an advantage in a drawn-out fight.

Musk has also spoken extensively about the trajectory of the conflict. More than a year ago, the billionaire proposed that Kiev abandon its claim to Crimea, declare neutrality, and allow the four new Russian regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye – to hold fresh referendums on joining the Russian Federation. This proposal is similar to the terms offered by Russia to Kiev and the Western powers before the conflict began, except Moscow initially called only for autonomy in Donetsk and Lugansk.

Musk has accused top US officials – most notably Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, known for her role in the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev – of “pushing this war”. On Saturday the Tesla mogul endorsed a post by American investor David Sacks, who argued that the conflict is “meat grinder” that will only end when Ukraine “lays in smoldering ruins on a funeral pyre of their own making”.

Despite favoring a ceasefire, Musk donated some 20,000 Starlink satellite internet terminals to Ukraine shortly after Russia launched its military operation in February 2022. However, Musk said last year that he had refused Kiev’s request to activate the service near Crimea, as doing so would allow the Ukrainian military to use Starlink to guide attack drones to Russian targets, making SpaceX “complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation”.

Musk has since leased his Starlink network to the Pentagon for military purposes.

The remarks came as US President Joe Biden made a renewed appeal to Congress to approve $60 billion in military aid for Kiev, saying that “no-one can be” confident Ukraine won’t lose more ground without it.

“I spoke with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky this afternoon to let him know that I was confident we’re going to get that money,” Biden told reporters in Delaware on Saturday, hours after the Russian Defense Ministry announced the liberation of Avdeevka.

The White House, the Pentagon, and Zelensky have blamed the loss of Avdeevka on the dwindling supplies of US arms and ammunition reaching Ukraine.

The US has already given Kiev more than $44.2 billion in military aid, but no additional funds have been appropriated, and a foreign aid bill that would allocate another $60 billion in military assistance to Kiev remains stalled in Congress, where House Republicans want it tied to a major tightening of US immigration law and funding for border security.

“I’m going to fight to get them the ammunition they need,” Biden said, adding that it would be “absurd” and “unethical” for Republicans to continue blocking the bill.

Asked whether he could be certain Ukraine would hold on to other front line cities without more American weapons and ammo, Biden replied “I’m not. I’m not. No one can be.”

President Vladimir Putin told reporter Pavel Zarubin on Sunday the Ukraine crisis is of existential importance for Russia, while it is only a tactical issue for NATO.

US Senate rewards Israel for killing Palestinians in Gaza: Iranian spokesperson

By
IFP Media Wire
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Nasser Kanaani

In a post on his X account on Sunday, Nasser Kanaani said the approved US package, funded by American taxpayers, signifies that figures such as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu alongside other executioners in the Gaza war, “will be rewarded with a daily sum of one hundred million dollars from the #United States for massacring innocent Palestinian civilians.”

He added that only corrupt and despotic entities, grounded in the act of taking lives, can squander money for the merciless massacre of innocents.

The US Senate on Tuesday passed a $95.34 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Chinese Taipei.

The legislation includes $61 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel and $4.83 billion to support the anti-China axis in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly Chinese Taipei.

More than 28,985 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and over 68,880 others injured since the Israeli regime launched its US-backed onslaught on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Kanaani also hailed a recent statement issued by the African Union (AU), which called for an end to the Israeli regime’s military aggression and crimes against the Palestinian people in the besieged enclave.

The statement was issued at the 37th African Union Summit in Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa on Saturday, with AU Commission Chairman Moussa Faki strongly condemning the Israeli savagery and indiscriminate attacks on Gaza.

“Rest assured, we strongly condemn these attacks that are unprecedented in the history of mankind,” Faki said.

“We want to reassure you of our solidarity with the people of Palestine,” he added, while accusing Israel of having “exterminated” Gaza’s inhabitants.

Speaking on Sunday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman voiced the country’s “categorical support” for the statement.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran declares its categorical support for the contents of this statement, which show commitment of the Union, as well as African leaders and nations to valuable humanitarian ideals regarding Palestine,” Kanaani stated.

He added that Iran has no doubt that continued adoption of such principled and humane positions by the African states, as well as “many other countries and nations around the world in support of the oppressed Palestinian nation will tighten the grip on the Zionist warmongers and criminals, and their supporters”.

The diplomat emphasized that such stances will also “pave the way for the cessation of the [Israeli] onslaught on Gaza and the [occupied] West Bank, and will alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.”

Brazil’s president compares Israel’s war on Gaza with Holocaust

By
IFP Media Wire
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Gaza War

“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” Lula told reporters in Addis Ababa where he was attending an African Union summit on Sunday.

“It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” added the Brazilian president.

“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history. Actually, it has happened: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”

Led by Hitler, the Nazis systematically killed six million Jews during World War II.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz stated he would summon Brazil’s ambassador for a reprimand over the remarks.

“No one will compromise Israel’s right to defend itself,” Katz wrote on X, adding that the envoy would be summoned on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the comments as “disgraceful and grave”.

“This is a trivialisation of the Holocaust and an attempt to attack the Jewish people and the right of Israel to self-defence. Drawing comparisons between Israel and the Nazis and Hitler is to cross a red line,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

Lula, 78, had condemned the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel as a “terrorist” act the day it happened.

But he has since grown vocally critical of Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza.

At least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Hamas members also took about 250 people captive, 130 of whom are still in Gaza, including 30 who are presumed dead, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 28,900 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian authorities.

Lula criticised Western countries’ recent decisions to halt aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, after Israel accused some of its employees of involvement in the Hamas-led attack.

Lula, who met with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh Saturday on the sidelines of the summit, has said Brazil will increase its own contribution to the agency and urged other countries to do the same.

“When I see the rich world announce that it’s halting its contributions to humanitarian aid for the Palestinians, I just imagine how big these people’s political awareness is and how big the spirit of solidarity in their hearts is,” Lula added.

“We need to stop being small when we need to be big.”

He reiterated his call for a two-state solution to the conflict, with Palestine “definitively recognised as a full and sovereign state”.

Hamas says media coverage of Gaza war part of fight against Israel

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Gaza War

Osama Hamdan, who is Hamas’ representative in Lebanon and also a member of the group’s politburo, made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the 24th edition of the Iran Media Expo in the capital Tehran on Sunday.

Hamdan went on to say that media coverage is no less important than the war on the battlefield, which is the reason why the Israeli regime is targeting journalists and media activists as their actions are important on the battlefield.

Highlighting the importance of media activities during the war, the Hamas official noted that over 120 media people have been killed since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in early October.

Media, undoubtedly, has played a key role in the Gaza war, he stated, stressing that it plays a “decisive role” in the current situation in the besieged enclave.

“Today, the media plays the main role in shaping the culture and spirit of sacrifice and resistance in societies”, Hamdan continued, adding that the power of the media has created a great responsibility and must be honest regarding the Muslim Ummah.

“The mission of the media that was achieved during this period and during the battle of Al-Aqsa Storm was the great and lasting achievements in the history of resistance and Palestine against the Zionist regime, and of course this is only a part of the role of the media.”

The Hamas official further stated that after 140 days since the beginning of the war, the situation of the resistance is better than what friends imagine.

Our nation is standing firm, he said adding that resistance is a major player in shaping the future.

Israel waged the brutal war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the occupying regime has killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured about 70,000 others.

Over the course of the Israeli onslaught, dozens of Gaza journalists have also been reported missing, detained, or injured. Israeli forces have also targeted their media offices and homes.

Pentagon says Yemen’s Houthis deployed underwater drone for the first time

By
IFP Media Wire
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Pentagon

The US Navy conducted a series of five strikes, hitting three Houthi cruise missiles, an unmanned surface vessel (USV) and one unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) on Saturday, CENTCOM announced on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday.

“This is the first observed Houthi employment of a UUV since attacks began in Oct. 23,” the US military wrote, claiming it presented an “imminent threat” to US Navy ships and commercial vessels in the area.

Since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in Gaza, the Houthi militants, who are in control of a large portion of Yemen, have harassed multiple vessels sailing the Red Sea. In solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, the Houthis vowed to attack any ships they find to be Israel-linked, until the siege of Gaza stops.

In response, the US launched an international maritime coalition to patrol the Red Sea dubbed “Prosperity Guardian”, with the stated goal of protecting the shipping lanes. Since mid-January, the US and the UK have carried out multiple air- and sea-launched attacks against “multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters” in Yemen in an attempt to “degrade Houthi capabilities” to attack military vessels and merchant ships.

The Houthis vowed to “meet escalation with escalation” and expanded their list of potential targets to include US- and UK-owned merchant vessels. While no Houthi missiles have hit a US Navy vessel thus far, the group has launched scores of missiles and drones against the US-led coalition ships in the Red Sea.

The attacks on Suez Canal freight – a route which normally accounts for around 15% of the world’s commercial shipping – have forced major companies to avoid the Red Sea altogether and sail around the coast of Africa, facing increased costs and spiking insurance premiums.

On Sunday, another vessel sailing off the coast of Yemen was hit, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. The Master of the ship reported an “explosion in close proximity of the vessel resulting in damage”, accounting that all crew was safe.

Netanyahu to lose office once Gaza war ends: Report

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Benjamin Netanyahu

Multiple opinion polls have demonstrated that Netanyahu’s approval ratings and those of his Likud party have been on the decline since Hamas fighters conducted their deadly surprise incursion into Israeli territory on October 7, 2023. Back in December, the Israel Democracy Institute, citing survey results, claimed that more than two-thirds of Israelis want general elections to be held as soon as hostilities in Gaza are over.

A survey conducted earlier this month showed that opposition parties would secure as many as 75 of the Israeli parliament’s 120 seats were elections held now.

In its report on Saturday, Ynet quoted an unnamed senior member of Likud as predicting that “whoever was prime minister on October 7 will finish his post at the end of the war.”

Another staffer from Netanyahu’s party allegedly contended that no matter “how much Netanyahu postpones the end and how much he doesn’t want to, at the end of this war we will go to elections.” According to the media outlet, the anonymous Likud bigwig added that the prime minister would be forced to call a snap election either by members of his own political force or by other parties making up the ruling coalition, with everyone understanding that “this is what’s going to happen.”

Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Netanyahu dismissed calls for a snap election, insisting that a vote for the Knesset should take place as scheduled, that is, in October 2026.

“I suggest we don’t concern ourselves with that during the war,” the prime minister said, arguing that the “last thing we need right now is elections.” Netanyahu warned that internal political division in Israel would play into the hands of Hamas.

The opposition Yesh Atid party released a statement describing the prime minister’s comments as “another performance by an unfit prime minister who, by all accounts, has long lost the public’s trust and continues to flee from the responsibility of the greatest failure to the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

“Israel needs change. Elections are the order of the day,” the party argued.

Ex-Russian president threatens to nuke US, UK, Germany, Ukraine if Russia loses occupied territories

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Russia Nuclear Weapons

Medvedev, who is also a former president of Russia, has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons but the threats have so far failed to materialize. He has become one of Russia’s most aggressive pro-war hawks since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.

“Attempts to restore Russia’s 1991 borders will lead only to one thing – a global war with Western countries with the use of our entire strategic (nuclear) arsenal against Kyiv, Berlin, London, and Washington. And against all other beautiful historic places that have long been included in the flight targets of our nuclear triad,” Medvedev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in a reference to the triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers with nuclear weapons.

In the fall of 2022, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson joined the Russian Federation after holding referendums.

In his latest post, Medvedev added that a potential defeat of Russia in the war against Ukraine and the “disintegration of the country” may trigger a nuclear war.

Medvedev has regularly threatened Ukraine and NATO with a nuclear attack.

In May 2022, he stated that by sending weapons and training Ukrainian soldiers, NATO “increases the likelihood of a direct and open conflict between NATO and Russia”.

Since then, thousands of Ukrainian troops have been trained in the NATO countries, and the allies have delivered different types of weapons, including long-range missiles, main battle tanks, and artillery systems.

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