NOURNEWS- The following headlines appeared in English-language newspapers in the Iranian capital on Monday, November 13, 2023.
IRAN DAILY:
-- Lives of hundreds of patients at risk at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital
The director general of hospitals in Gaza warned that the lives of hundreds of patients are at risk due to the catastrophic situation at Al-Shifa hospital as Israel intensified its deadly strikes on the Palestinian territory, especially on the region’s health centers.
About 650 patients, including 36 children, have their lives in danger, Muhammad Zaqout said at a press conference, calling on Egypt to save their lives.
Zaqout also confirmed the presence of “about 1,500 displaced people in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex,” warning that “accumulation of garbage and medical waste, lack of water, and power outages threaten everyone’s life”.
Clashes reported around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, where thousands of wounded and displaced Palestinians are trapped. The compound has been repeatedly hit by strikes in recent days, one of which Hamas health officials said destroyed the cardiac ward on Sunday.
“The occupier (Israel) completely destroyed the cardiac department of Al-Shifa hospital... The two-storey building has been completely destroyed in an air strike,” Youssef Abu Rish, deputy health minister in the Gaza Strip, told AFP.
Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila said Israeli forces “are not evacuating people from hospitals; instead, they are forcibly evicting the wounded and patients onto the streets, leaving them to face inevitable death”.
The Israeli military, which has killed more than 4,000 children since the beginning of the conflict in Gaza, pledged on Saturday to aid the evacuation of babies from the hospital, claiming that “staff of the Al-Shifa hospital has requested that”.
Inside Al-Shifa hospital, Doctors Without Borders surgeon Mohammed Obeid said there was no water, power, food or internet access for about 600 post-operative patients, 37-40 babies and 17 people in intensive care.
The surgeon said in an audio message posted Saturday on social media that two babies died in the Al-Shifa neonatal unit after power to their incubators was cut off and a man also died when his ventilator shut down.
Attack on UN compound
Meanwhile, the United Nations said several people have been killed and wounded in Israeli strikes on a UN facility in Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians have taken refuge to escape the war.
“The shelling has reportedly resulted in a significant number of deaths and injuries,” the United Nations Development Programme said in a statement issued late Saturday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called for pressure on the United States to stop Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but said there would be no agreement unless Washington accepted the region as Palestinian land.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday ruled out a role for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Gaza once the war is over.
“There will have to be something else there,” he said, when asked whether the PA, which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, may govern Gaza after the war.
Erdogan returned from a summit on Saturday of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
Israel’s ‘barbaric’ actions
Arab and Muslim leaders at the summit condemned Israeli forces “barbaric” actions in Gaza.
The final declaration on Saturday rejected Israeli claims that it is acting in “self-defense”, and demanded that the UN Security Council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s “aggression”.
“The US should increase its pressure on Israel. The West should increase pressure on Israel... It’s vital for us to secure a cease-fire,” Erdogan said. He said the US must accept Gaza as Palestinian land.
“We cannot agree with Biden if he approaches (the conflict) by seeing Gaza as the land of occupying settlers or Israel, rather than the land of the Palestinian people,” he said.
Turkey has been an increasingly vocal critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which was triggered after Hamas fighters staged an October 7 attack into the occupied territories which killed around 1,200 people.
Israel’s relentless campaign in response has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest figures from the Health Ministry in Gaza.
New protests
Fresh demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians were also held in many countries. On Sunday, protesters took to the streets of Australia’s largest city, Sydney, demanding an end to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Similar protests were also held in many European cities including London, Paris, Brussels, Barcelona, Dublin and Berlin on Saturday. Argentina’s capital and South Africa’s Cape Town were also the scene of anti-Israel demonstrations.
-- GOP candidates bloodthirsty, delusional about Iran
It’s like Iraq and Afghanistan never happened in the minds of the next generation of Republican warmongers.
Listening to the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, I heard all the things I expect to hear from Republican candidates — from fearmongering about the Mexican border to deafening silence about the 26 million people who still don’t have health insurance in the wealthiest nation on the planet.
I also heard a lot of bloodthirstiness about the Palestinians. Sadly, at this point, I expect that, too. Even those MAGA Republicans who cosplay as “anti-war” when they’re talking about Ukraine are all in on this American proxy war. One thing that did slightly surprise me, though, was how eager some of these people seemed to be to start a war with Iran.
Referring to strikes on US forces in the region by Iranian-allied groups in Iraq and Syria and the US engaging in limited retaliation, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley said: “We need to understand this is Iran giving the green light telling them what to do, and we shouldn’t be doing the tit for tat like what Joe Biden has done. We need to go and take out their infrastructure that they are using to make those strikes with, so they can never do it again.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) went even further, tying together Hamas, Hezbollah, and the fighters in Iraq and Syria to draw the conclusion that “you have to cut off the head of the snake and the head of the snake is Iran and not simply their proxies.”
But even if you don’t care about the ocean of death and suffering this would bring to Iranian civilians just trying to live their lives, how many Americans would die or come home physically or psychologically broken by the time it was all over?
Why would we do that to ourselves — again?
Afghanistan was the longest war in American history — and surely one of the most pointless. A year and a half after he sent troops to Afghanistan, George W. Bush invaded a second country — Iraq. In some ways that one was such a disaster that it made Afghanistan look good.
By contrast, Iran is — to put it bluntly — a real country with a real army. Not on an American scale, of course, but even so. The Iranian armed forces consist of 610,000 active-duty personnel, plus another 350,000 available for mobilization — not to mention the various closely allied forces, like Hezbollah, that the candidates were talking about on Wednesday night. Saddam Hussein and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan were also diplomatically isolated in a way that Iran just isn’t. It exercises massive influence in the region — including, thanks to Bush’s war, Iraq — and it’s allied with Russia. The potential for aid coming from all sorts of quarters during a war with the United States should give even as enthusiastic a warmonger as Nikki
Haley pause.
Maybe Scott and Haley just want to…what…to bomb the hell out of them for a few days and just get away with it without the Iranians lifting a finger in response? As delusional as that is, Haley seemed to say as much at one point: “Iran responds to strength. You punch them once, you punch them hard, and they back off.”
So, in her worldview, Iran is both an incredibly dangerous country that needs to have its whole “infrastructure” “take[n] out” in such a final way that they can “never” provide aid to forces fighting with the US again — but also so weak and cautious that if President Haley tried it, they wouldn’t even fight back?
Whatever else you want to say about all this, one thing everyone should stop saying — forever — is that any of these people are “anti-war”.
-- US overt, covert plans for Gaza war
The world is a plurality of entities. That is why we see disparate positions taken by countries regarding the war on Gaza. Regardless, what is plainly obvious is that the United States has fully entered the war.
Whenever the US is brought up in conversation, one should take into account the heightened role that the country plays and now is unimaginable for any other country to play. For example, the US wields an exceptional power in making or breaking coalitions as demonstrated by the mobilization of its allies in support of Israel. Anyone who has seen the country engaged in a battle of narratives or media warfare knows that it also has an undeniable influence on international institutions.
Washington’s plans for the Gaza war are either overt or covert, with each probably having short-term and long-term objectives.
We saw the overt plans of the United States in action. They are easily gleaned from the following actions:
1. It has tried to prevent the condemnation or restriction of Israel in international institutions. For example, Washington has vetoed the United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for “humanitarian pauses” in the war.
2. It has delivered military equipment to Israel, some overtly and some not. It has even dispatched its fleet to the region to deter attacks on the occupying regime.
3. It has put a spotlight on the October 7 attack by Hamas on the occupied territories in order to strike preemptively in the battle of narratives in the media. This battle became a means to justify the devastating attacks of Israel on Gaza and the killing of Palestinians.
4. It has also tried and still tries to orient its allies in the Arab world, Europe, and the G7 to conform to its logic and approach.
The covert plans of the US for the war, however, are secret and somewhat unclear. For instance, it is not evident what its plans are for the normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel after this. The fate of Gaza is equally unclear. Will Gaza be handed over to the Palestinian Authority? Will the plan for the forced migration of Gazans to the Sinai Desert be still on the table? Will Gaza get under the control of international forces? What is certain is that the US admittedly does not want the besieged enclave to be occupied by Israel. Washington will surely have plans for every one of these possibilities.
Tel Aviv is against a cease-fire because a cease-fire is not currently included in any of Washington’s plans. The recent G7 statement reflected that the US and its allies prefer to use the new term “humanitarian pause,” which is a short-term solution for delivering aid, not for stopping the war.
Israel and the US are not willing to negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas, stressing that to negotiate with Hamas is to recognize it. This is not the whole picture. The other part of it answers the following questions: What country or organization would be assigned the responsibility of negotiating with Hamas, and Gaza will be handed over to which group?
The situation is very complicated right now, and we can’t even say who Israel or the US will negotiate with. It seems that Hamas, as a warring party, will not be a side to the negotiation. Israel and the US are dreaming about a Gaza without Hamas. Nevertheless, Hamas, as a school of thinking and a way to stand against greedy demands and horrible crimes of Israel is indestructible. So, it seems that Israeli attacks on Gaza with the support of the US will go on at least for a few more days.
-- Magic’s balanced attack too strong for Bucks
Paolo Banchero scored 26 points, Franz Wagner added 24 and the Orlando Magic weathered a 35-point, 10-rebound effort from Giannis Antetokounmpo to beat the visiting Milwaukee Bucks 112-97 in NBA on Saturday night.
Orlando took the lead late in the first quarter and never looked back, building an advantage of as many as 21 points behind a balanced offensive attack. Antetokounmpo carried the load for Milwaukee, which was playing a second straight game without Damian Lillard, who was out due to right calf soreness.
Jalen Suggs supplied 20 points as five Orlando scorers finished in double figures, including Moritz Wagner, who had 19 points off the bench. Moritz Wagner scored 12 points in the first half to help ignite the pivotal, second-quarter surge that gave Orlando the lead for the rest of the game.
Jonathan Isaac chipped in 10 points off the bench and grabbed three of his five rebounds on the offensive glass – part of an overall theme for Orlando on the night. The Magic enjoyed an emphatic 22-4 advantage in second-chance points, a byproduct of their 15 offensive rebounds to just five for the Bucks.
Elsewhere, Caris LeVert came off the bench to lead a balanced attack with 22 points, Dean Wade buried a pair of key 3-pointers to open the fourth quarter and the Cleveland Cavaliers completed a season-series sweep over the Golden State Warriors 118-110 with a win in San Francisco.
Donovan Mitchell (21 points), Darius Garland (19) and Evan Mobley (19) led all five starters in double figures for the Cavaliers, who had lost 12 straight regular-season games to the Warriors before a 115-104 home win last Sunday. The sweep was Cleveland’s first over Golden State since 2010.
Stephen Curry led all scorers with 30 points but shot just 4-for-14 on 3-pointers.
Jaylen Brown scored a game-high 29 points and Jayson Tatum finished with 27 as Boston Celtics improved its home record to 4-0 by beating visiting Toronto Raptors 117-94.
Pascal Siakam tossed in a team-high 17 points and was one of five Raptors who scored in double figures.
Bam Adebayo collected 26 points and 17 rebounds, and rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. added a season-high 20 points to lift visiting Miami Heat to a 117-109 victory over Atlanta Hawks.
-- Energy ministers of five countries due in Tehran for IEE
The energy ministers of Pakistan, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan will arrive in Tehran this week to participate in the inaugural ceremony of the 23rd edition of the Iran Int’l Electricity Exhibition (IEE).
The 23rd edition of the expo and the first edition of the Iran Electricity Industry Tech Market Festival will kick off in Tehran tomorrow, Tasnim news agency reported.
A total of 474 domestic firms and representatives of 110 foreign companies from 12 countries, including Italy, the Czech Republic, Germany, China, South Korea, Croatia, Turkey, Spain, India, Slovenia, Poland and Japan will take part in the IEE 2023 exhibition to showcase their latest products and achievements, while 259 scientific centers and knowledge-based companies will participate in the First Iran Electricity Industry Tech Market Festival.
The IEE is held annually in the country with the participation of a great number of competent domestic and foreign companies and provides the opportunity for domestic companies active in the power industry to display their latest products and achievements.
In this edition of the exhibition, products will be supplied in the fields of electricity generation, transmission, distribution, high-, mid- and low- voltage pressure, electrical equipment; types of electrical panels, lighting equipment, smart equipment, diesel generator and electric motors, battery and UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), cathode protection systems, transformer, wire and cable, industrial automation and instrumentation, measuring equipment, contractor, consultant, scientific research and research centers, power transmission lines and related equipment, medium- and low-voltage substations, and renewable energies.
The exhibition will run through November 17.
-- Fresh US sanctions won’t block Iranian oil flow
China has become the major destination for the Iranian oil flow in recent years in the wake of a “maximum pressure” campaign launched by former US president Donald Trump in 2018 that targeted Iran’s economy including its petroleum exports.
The sanctions initially caused a drastic decline in shipments to China, scaring away giant state refiners Sinopec and PetroChina, which were once key Iranian oil customers and had invested in its oilfields. But volumes have rebounded as independent Chinese refiners, known as teapots, replaced those behemoths to lift the Iranian crude. Imports further jumped this year after Iran raised its oil output to almost pre-sanction levels (3.4 million barrels per day (bpd)) and offered generous discounts.
Ship-tracking data from London-based energy market intelligence firm Vortexa showed that Iranian oil arriving in Chinese ports reached around 1.45 million bpd last month, hitting the highest monthly level ever. According to Vortexa, China bought more than one million bpd of Iranian crude in the first 10 months of 2023. This was 60% above peaks recorded by Chinese customs in 2017 when Iran’s oil sales were not subject to US sanctions.
Vortexa data cited by Reuters echoed a similar estimate published by Bloomberg a few days ago which put Iran’s overall crude exports in October at 1.43 million bpd, as per data from TankerTrackers – a vessel monitoring service that tracks shipments and oil storage. Bloomberg added the vast majority of Iranian barrels – well over 90% – headed to China, the world’s largest crude importer.
Unlike Reuters’ report, which pictured an upward trajectory, Bloomberg’s account portrayed a declining trend, saying Iran’s oil exports plunged in October for the second consecutive month. The US news agency reported that there was a drop of 194,000 bpd in Iran’s oil shipments from September, which marked the lowest since July.
While there is a flat contradiction between the two narratives, one thing is for sure: China has built up an appetite for discounted Iranian crude. This appetite has made the Asian economic powerhouse Iran’s top
client.
The contradiction, however, may stem from the fact that keeping track of Iran’s exports is a challenging task. Tankers carrying Iranian crude often switch off transponders that feed the shipping industry’s conventional tracking systems to go untraceable. Some companies like TankerTrackers bolster their analysis of flows by studying satellite imagery of cargo loadings.
Iranian oil is carried to China by a “dark fleet” of older tankers that keep a low profile when loading at Iranian ports. The so-called ghost flotilla uses other tactics which include faking locations and conducting ship-to-ship operations at locations outside of authorized transfer zones and sometimes in poor weather to conceal activities.
So, how exactly does Iranian crude end up in the world’s second-largest economy? Except for two cargoes, China’s customs has not recorded any direct imports from Iran since December 2020. Almost all Iranian cargoes entering China, mostly at ports in Shandong province, are branded as originating from Malaysia or other Middle Eastern countries, according to Reuters.
More than 40 independent Chinese refiners have so far processed Iranian oil since they have little exposure to the dollar-based global financial system. Most of their transactions are believed to be paid in Chinese currency.
The teapots opt for Iranian oil because it is cheap and of good quality. Iranian Light, the main export grade, trades at a discount of about $13 a barrel to Intercontinental Exchange Brent in Shandong for December arrival.
On the financial front, China has long used smaller institutions like the Bank of Kunlun — a key Chinese conduit for transactions with Iran — to facilitate commerce and limit the exposure of larger entities with international business links, according to Bloomberg.
More recently, Chinese importers have benefited from the development of a pound-based alternative to Western clearinghouses. The Chinese platform is known as the Cross-Border Interbank Payments System (CIPS) launched by the central bank to settle international claims.
The growing Iranian-Sino oil trade comes as hawks in Washington are pushing President Joe Biden’s administration to tighten the screw of US sanctions on Iran and exert further pressure on the country over its support for the Palestinian group Hamas — which carried out brazen attacks on Israel from Gaza on October 7.
Earlier this month, the US House of Representatives rubber-stamped a bill that would target foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran. However, it is unclear whether Washington can actually do much to counter Iran’s oil exports if the bipartisan bill becomes law.
Multiple middlemen involved have made the lucrative trade very sophisticated and thus more difficult for the US to tackle. “The US can hit companies that are more public or obvious in their Iranian dealings, but many of these middlemen are small entities,” said Homayoun Falakshahi, senior oil analyst at data and analytics group Kpler. “If you find a middleman and decide to go harsh, they’ll go out of business. But many of these firms are shell companies with fake offices,” Falakshahi added. “The same people can easily set up another new company in one or two months.”
US sanctions dealt a heavy blow to Iran’s oil sales, pushing them below half a million in 2020. However, the sales began to gain momentum as the seller and buyers found loopholes to offset the embargo. With such valuable experience at the disposal of Iran and its oil partners, any new sanction to curtail Iran’s exports appears to be a failed effort in the first place.
KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL:
-- Top General: Gazans Invalidated Zionist Military Strategies
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood launched outside Gaza in October discredited the Zionist regime’s military strategies, a ranking IRGC commander said Sunday.
Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Ground Force Brigadier General Muhammad Pakpour paid a visit to the IRGC bases in Iran’s southwestern border areas to evaluate the preparedness of his forces. The commander hailed the surprise operation, saying it was the defenseless Palestinian people’s uprising against Israeli cruelty, occupation, and massacre during the past 75 years.
-- ‘Air Defense Updated According to New Threats’
The commander of Iran’s northeast air defense zone said Sunday the country’s air defense equipment has been updated based on new threats.
Brigadier General Muhammadreza Masoumi said no threat is undetectable for Iran’s air defense. He said if aerospace threats are rapidly growing, the country is developing its defensive equipment with the same speed.
-- Zionist Troops Fire at Any Movement at Shifa Hospital
Israeli ground forces on Sunday faced determined Palestinian fighters near Gaza’s largest hospital, where health officials said thousands of staff, patients and displaced people remain trapped with no electricity, dwindling supplies and some gunfire coming inside.
Extremist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire.
Residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling, including around Shifa Hospital. The occupying regime of Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the hospital compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff.
“We spent the night in panic waiting for their arrival,” said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident taking shelter in the hospital. “They are outside, not far from the gates.”
The hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry. It says another 36 babies are at risk of dying without electricity.
Health Ministry Undersecretary Munir al-Boursh said Zionist snipers have deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement inside the compound. He said airstrikes had destroyed several homes next to the hospital, killing three people, including a doctor.
“There are wounded in the house, and we can’t reach them,” he told Al Jazeera television. “We can’t stick our heads out of the window.”
The Health Ministry said there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter.
The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital, the Red Crescent-run Al-Quds, is “no longer operational” because it has run out of fuel. Gaza’s sole power plant was forced to shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred any fuel imports.
Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Red Crescent, said 6,000 people, including displaced families, patients, and staff, remained trapped in the hospital.
Alarm was growing. “Decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and prevent further loss of life” amid attacks on health care, the UN regional directors of the World Health Organization and others said in a statement, adding that more than half of Gaza’s hospitals are closed and the rest are under “massive strain.”
Muhammad Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said the Health Ministry has been unable to update the death toll since Friday as medics are unable to reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment. “The situation is extremely dire,” he said. “Ambulances are unable to reach people under the rubble.”
Shifa doctors recounted the moment they made the difficult choice of leaving the hospital. Palestinian surgeon Hayal al-Sheikh Khalil said she left al-Shifa after spending more than a month inside the facility.
“I cannot comprehend the atrocities committed by the Israeli occupation at al-Shifa hospital, a facility housing a very large number of wounded individuals and civilian doctors who have left their homes and families to provide care,” Khalil said.
She said that many of the patients in al-Shifa have lost their entire families, leaving them without anyone to attend to their needs.
“Most of the cases I have operated on are children, who are now left without adequate medical staff, no medical materials, no electricity and no fuel. They are literally left to die,” Khalil said.
About 2.3 million Palestinians remain trapped in the besieged territory.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, that he asked European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to apply the same “legal, moral grounds” for EU support of Ukraine to “define its stand on Israel’s war crimes.”
Dozens of wounded people, including children, were brought to a hospital in Khan Younis after an Israeli airstrike demolished a building in the southern town. Hospital officials said at least 13 were martyred.
The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gaza’s population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing, as well as the entry of some humanitarian aid.
Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila said Zionist forces were “not evacuating people,” but rather “forcing wounded patients onto the streets, leaving them to face inevitable death.”
She also noted that there was a “catastrophe unfolding” in all of Gaza’s hospitals, with patients dying without having being able to be treated.
Some of the worst affected are those with kidney failure, who have not been able to undergo dialysis.
The minister also said that there are 3,000 cancer patients at the Rantisi and Turkish hospitals who face imminent death.
“All pregnant women, especially those with high-risk pregnancies, are now in imminent danger as they cannot find anyone to provide them with medical care and services in Gaza. Every woman about to give birth will find no medical assistance,” she warned.
More than 11,100 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been martyred since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble.
At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side. Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground invasion began.
About 250,000 Zionists have been forced to evacuate from settlements near Gaza, where Palestinian resistance fighters are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon.
On Saturday, Netanyahu began to outline Israel’s postwar plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision put forth by the United States.
Netanyahu said Gaza would be demilitarized and that Israel would retain the ability to enter Gaza freely. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward a Palestinian state. Even before the war, Netanyahu’s regime was staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood.
The Zionist regime’s extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir hinted at the idea of re-establishing settlements in Gaza that Israel dismantled in 2005 and said it was necessary to re-occupy the besieged territory.
“I’m not afraid of renewing the settlements in Gush Katif” inside Gaza, Ben Gvir told Israeli news outlet Reshel Bet.
The war threatens to trigger a wider conflict, with Israel and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon frequently trading fire along the border. Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles at Zionist targets on Sunday, as Israel attacked southern territories with artillery and fighter jets. The Zionist regime said several people were wounded, and video footage showed two vehicles on fire.
-- People Rally in Major Cities in Solidarity With Palestine
Demonstrators the world over have rallied in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, condemning the occupying regime of Israel’s ongoing genocide in the besieged and occupied territories and calling for an immediate ceasefire.
Major cities, including Paris, Auckland, Cape Town, New York, London, Cologne, Stockholm, Athens, Baghdad, Karachi, Berlin and Edinburgh witnessed large marches on Saturday and Sunday.
Indonesia has emerged as a beacon of solidarity for Palestine. On Sunday, thousands took to the streets and social media, rallying behind hashtags such as #WeAreAllGaza and #GazaGenocide, echoing an uprising of support for Palestinians.
Hundreds of people gathered in Auckland’s Aotea Square Sunday afternoon, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
It came a day after protesters gathered at the Museum Reserve in Dunedin before marching on the Octagon, chanting and wielding placards and Palestinian flags.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) spokesperson Rinad Tamimi, who spent her childhood in Gaza, said she had seen the numbers attending the Dunedin rallies double each week.
In Germany, participants gathered at the square between the historic Cologne Cathedral and the train station carried Palestinian flags and banners with messages condemning Israeli atrocities.
A large number of people took to the streets in Stockholm to show solidarity with Palestine.
The protestors gathered near the Swedish parliament, chanting “Freedom for Palestine” and carrying banners drawing attention to the killing of thousands of children in Gaza.
They also hit out at the Swedish government’s support for Israel, accusing the government of complicity in the Zionist regime’s war crimes.
In Athens, hundreds of Greeks who gathered at the Panathenaic Stadium carried Palestinian flags and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.
Hundreds of people also rallied around Souda Bay in Greece, used by the U.S. Navy and Air Forces, to protest Israeli attacks on Gaza and NATO and American policies on the conflict.
On Saturday, several thousand people demonstrated in Paris under the rallying cry “Stop the massacre in Gaza”.
The organizers called for France to “demand an immediate ceasefire” in the Israeli war on Gaza.
“I came to support the Palestinian cause, for a ceasefire in Gaza,” said engineer Ahlem Triki, a Palestinian flag over her shoulders.
Gaza ceasefire rallies also took place in other French towns including Marseille, Toulouse, Rennes and Bordeaux.
“This mobilization is essential, in the face of massacres,” said LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard at the demonstration of about 1,300 people in Marseille.
Thousands of South Africans marched in Cape Town to protest the Israeli genocide.
The protest organized by several civil society groups drew protesters from various religious denominations, including Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Secretary-General of the ruling African National Congress party, Fikile Mbalula, and ANC MP, Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela, asked the government to end diplomatic ties with Israel.
They also demanded that the government close the Israeli embassy in Pretoria.
South Africa withdrew its entire diplomatic staff last week from Tel Aviv for consultation because of the Zionist regime’s war on Gaza.
The foreign ministry also summoned Israeli ambassador Eliav Belotsercovsky over his recent conduct relating to the war.
South African citizens have held more than a dozen protests since the Israeli invasion of Gaza on Oct. 8.
-- Palestinians Hail Londoners for Huge Rally of Support
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have praised British nationals for holding weekly protests in solidarity with those under bombardment in Gaza, despite attempts by the UK government to have them cancelled and ministers referring to them as “hate marches”.
Ibrahim Omran, the head of a local council in the besieged village of Burin just south of Nablus, told Middle East Eye that he was touched to see massive demonstrations in London over the past month, with hundreds of thousands pouring onto the streets to denounce Israel’s relentless bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip.
“I want to thank the people of Britain for marching in support of Palestine,” he said. “I hope the people protesting against the war will influence the British government. They are a great solidarity for us,” he added.
Saturday’s protest in London coincided with Armistice weekend, a nationwide annual remembrance of the end of World War I when many in the UK pause to remember the victims of war.
However, earlier this week, UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused police of “playing favorites” and failing to treat “pro-Palestinian mobs” the same way as right-wing and nationalist protestors after the police said they could not legally ban the march.
“I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza,” Braverman wrote in an article published by the Times newspaper.
“They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists – of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland. Also disturbingly reminiscent of Ulster are the reports that some of Saturday’s march group organizers have links to terrorist groups, including Hamas.”
Braverman’s comments drew heavy criticism, including from opposition politicians and activists.
David Lammy, a Labor MP, said Braverman was looking to “exploit the sensitivities of this moment, and ignorance to Northern Ireland’s history… for her own leadership campaign”.
Labor Party spokesperson Yvette Cooper called Braverman “out of control” and said that “no other home secretary of any party would ever do this”.
The UK government and the main opposition party, the Labor Party, have refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, a position that has drawn widespread criticism from anti-war protesters.
In the Palestinian hamlet of Kifl Haris, some 18km south of Nablus, village elder Abdul Kareem said Saturday’s march was “evidence that the British people have a conscience and reject the killing of innocent persons”.
In the weeks since Hamas’ unprecedented operation inside Occupied Palestine, an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Feras Diab, the head of the municipality of Deir Istiya, a Palestinian settlement some 15km southwest of Nablus, he said he took solace from the London protests, given the UK’s role in supporting Israel.
“We believe that this intensive protest will exert pressure to stop the war. Especially because it takes place in a country like Britain which stands clearly with Israel and has never helped the Palestinians.”
-- US-Zionist Delight at the Inability of the Muslim World
To the delight of the Zionist mass murderers and their terroristic godfathers in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin, the communique issued by the emergency summit of the 56-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which though strongly-worded on paper lacks the teeth to stop the unabated 36-day genocide in Gaza.
The criminal cliques in power in the US, Britain, France, and Germany, are already toasting with the fresh blood of the Palestinians, especially of thousands of babies, the inability of 56 Muslim countries to stand up to their little murderous brat, or even summon the courage to sever the treasonous relations that some of them have established with the illegitimate Zionist entity.
The president of Iran was among the few voices at the Riyadh meeting holding the US responsible for the continued carnage with its massive supply of weapons and even military advisors to usurper Israel to turn Gaza into a virtual graveyard.
It is a matter of deep regret that the commendable words of Hojjat al-Islam Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi in his highly applauded speech in defining the eastern and western borders of Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea (‘min an-Nahr il’al-Bahr’ in Arabic) was not included in the communique.
This phrase “from the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is reverberating all over the world these days in different languages, including European, as hundreds of thousands of conscientious people, the majority of them non-Muslims, are staging massive protests worldwide against Israel in defiance of the ban on rallies, and this slogan in particular.
If only the heads of Muslim states had fear of the Almighty Creator rather than of the Great Satan and its devilish brat, the destiny of the Ummah would have been entirely different today with usurper Israel already erased from the map of West Asia.
They should have boldly stated in the OIC communique that the regimes which are Israel’s comrades-in-crimes against humanity and are desperately trying to save the Zionist entity from extinction through a general massacre of Palestinian people, should transport all these illegal non-Semitic Khazar migrants to some place in West Europe or North America, where no Arab or any other Muslim will come to disturb their peace.
Anyway, since the hypocrites in the West are not willing to end the destruction of Gaza, they should now face the wrath of the Resistance Forces who are resolved to retaliate against Israel’s terrorism, even if it requires the decimation of all US bases in the region – not just in Syria and Iraq.
The dauntless defenders of Gaza have shown to the whole world for over a month that despite being outnumbered and outclassed in weaponry they have the faith and willpower to fight to the last man against the unmanly Israelis – an indomitable spirit that was (and is) absent in the national armies of four Arab countries that were defeated in a mere six days in 1967 by the cowardly Zionists, and surrendered large swathes of their homelands to the east European usurpers.
-- Thousands Rally in Tel Aviv Calling for Release of Captives
Thousands of people have rallied in Tel Aviv, asking for the release of Israeli and foreign captives being held by Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip and criticizing the Zionist regime for the way it is dealing with the crisis.
Many of the protesters on Saturday were friends and family members of the captives and demanded their immediate return.
“Mr Prime Minister, cabinet members, do not talk to me about conquering, do not talk to me about flattening [Gaza]. Do not talk at all. Just take action… bring them home now,” Noam Perry, whose father was abducted from the town of Nir Oz, told the crowd at the protest.
“They ask us who our rage is directed at and it is all of humanity … but mainly, those who are responsible for us, those who have a contract with us,” said Jack Levy, another demonstrator.
More than 240 people, including Zionist troops and civilians as well as foreigners, were abducted during a surprise operation in the southern part of the Israeli-occupied territories on October 7.
A few hundred Israeli left-wing activists, both Arab and Jewish, held a separate demonstration near the war ministry in Tel Aviv, calling for a ceasefire despite an ongoing crackdown on anti-war voices and protests.
Demands for a ceasefire have been growing from citizens around the world as well as world leaders.
Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea of any ceasefire “without the return of our hostages”. The United States has advocated instead for “humanitarian pauses” to allow civilians to flee and for aid delivery.
More than 11,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since the occupying regime launched a campaign of air strikes on October 7.
In remarks on Saturday, Netanyahu ruled out a role for the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Gaza once the war is over.
TEHRAN TIMES:
-- Afterthoughts: Riyadh Summit highlighted Iran’s return
The main focus of the extraordinary Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh was obviously the plight of the Palestinians. But it also included important diplomatic moments for Iran. Although the public mood in Iran’s diplomatic apparatus was gloomy over the Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip, Iran’s diplomatic achievements were remarkable, with the Iranian President meeting Arab leaders for the first time in years. President Raisi arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday for the Arab-Islamic summit on Gaza amid a brutal Israeli campaign against the civilians in the Palestinian enclave. To begin with, President Raisi’s trip to Saudi Arabia was a breakthrough in itself. Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been locked in rivalries and disputes over a range of issues, which ultimately led to the breakdown of their diplomatic relations in 2016. The two regional heavyweights remained without any diplomatic relations for almost seven years. Despite countless mediation efforts by regional countries such as Iraq and Pakistan, Riyadh and Tehran failed to patch up their relations until last March when a Chinese-brokered deal broke the ice and heralded a new era in Iranian-Saudi relations. Since then, the officials of the two countries have been busy scheduling mutual trips.
-- Exports from mining sector rises 7.5% in 7 months on year
Iran exported 35.87 million tons of minerals and mining products worth over $7.4 billion in the first seven months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-October 22), registering a 7.5 percent increase year on year. The exports from the mentioned sector in the said period also increased by 37 percent in terms of weight, IRNA reported. Iran had exported 26.03 million tons of minerals and mining products valued at $6.9 billion in the previous year’s first seven months. Steel and steel products were the top exported commodities in this sector, followed by copper and its byproducts, aluminum, and related items, as well as other downstream products. Having 81 different types of minerals, Iran is one of the top 10 mineral-rich countries across the globe. In this regard, the Iranian government has been seriously pursuing several programs to promote the mining sector as a major contributor to the country’s economic growth. Iran’s proven iron ore reserves are 2.7 billion tons, while the country’s copper reserves are 2.6 billion tons. The country also has 11 million tons of zinc reserves.
-- Iranian universities advance in QS Asia Rankings
QS Asia University Rankings (QS) has included 31 Iranian universities in the list of top universities in 2024, compared with 16 and 13 universities in 2023 and 2022, respectively. Sharif University of Technology ranked first among Iranian universities, followed by Amirkabir University of Technology, and Iran University of Science and Technology, Mehr reported. A total of 856 universities from Asia are included in this year’s QS Asia University Rankings. Peking University has been ranked as the best university in the region. This year’s QS Asia University Rankings can also be viewed in sub-regions: Central Asia (including Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) Eastern Asia (includes mainland China, Japan, and South Korea) South-Eastern Asia (including, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand) Southern Asia (including India and Pakistan).
NOURNEWS