‘My hands are paralyzed from torture’: Gazans reveal horrors of Ofer Camp

December 19, 2024

Oren Ziv

In February, Rami was arrested by the Israeli army at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital. The 42-year-old Palestinian was taken to the notorious Sde Teiman detention center, where, like thousands of Gazans detained there, he endured severe abuse at the hands of the guards. But he was soon transferred out. “I thought I was being returned to Gaza, but I found myself in another prison,” he told +972 and Local Call. That prison was Ofer Camp — a military facility that Israel established during the current war to hold detainees from Gaza, located between Jerusalem and Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

 

 Detainees at Ofer Prison, near Jerusalem, occupied West Bank, August 28, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Burning Witches and Torching American Democracy

December 19, 2024

James Bovard

On December 1, President Joe Biden announced that he was pardoning his son Hunter for all the crimes he committed from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024. Biden’s sweeping pardon of all of his son’s abuses epitomizes how presidents and their families are now above the law. It also illustrates how the “King James Test for American Democracy” could become the death of the Constitution.

Chess King Gukesh: How an 18-year-old dreamer checkmated the world

December 19, 2024

S. Sujatha

What dreams can an eight-year-old boy harbor? Perhaps a new video game, a favorite toy, or a cherished destination. At most, an autograph or selfie with a beloved sports star. But young Gukesh Dommaraju’s dream was extraordinary: to become world chess champion.

 

 Ding Liren (L) of China plays against Dommaraju Gukesh of India during the Game 14 of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 in Singapore on December 12, 2024. ©  Global Look Press / XinHua / Then Chih Wey

This festive season, Gaza is starving

December 18, 2024

Esraa Abo Qamar

Winter has now come to the Northern Hemisphere and has ushered in a festive mood in many places. In Gaza, it has brought more misery. The cold weather and rain have made the lives of the 1.9 million Palestinians displaced in Gaza that much more unbearable.

 

 Palestinian children wait for a food portion at a distribution centre in south of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on December 17, 2024 [Bashar Taleb/AFP]

Now Is the Time to Protect Progressive Organizations

December 18, 2024

Mattie Armstrong-Price

The coming year promises to be a dangerous time for progressive groups. Last month the House passed resolution 9495, which would grant the executive branch extraordinary powers to designate nonprofit organizations as terrorist supporting and thereby to revoke these organizations’ 501(c)3 status unilaterally and without due process.

 

Hundreds of activists gather for an encampment on the University of Michigan's campus calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, on April 24, 2024 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.(Photo: Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Hamas indicates ceasefire deal is close, if Israel ‘stops adding new conditions’

December 17,2024

Hamas said on Tuesday that it believes ceasefire talks have been productive enough for a ceasefire to be agreed, but only if Israel does not impose further conditions. 

Palestinians inspect the damage in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip 16 December 2024 (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

The Hypocrisy of Bombing Iran

December 17,2024

Ted Snider

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly expressed concern that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb on his watch. In considering his options to prevent that, The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is considering the possibility of airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

“7 countries in 5 years”: Regime change in Iran coming soon?

December 17,2024

Gavin O’Reilly

In the early hours of last Sunday morning, a seismic geopolitical shift occurred when the 24-year Presidency of Syria by Bashar al-Assad came to an end in dramatic fashion.

 

Unity Above Else: The Only Road to the Liberation of Palestine

December 16, 2024

Ramzy Baroud

A new kind of unity around Palestine is finally finding its way to the Palestine solidarity movement worldwide.

‘People feel they might be executed’: Syrians come out for a frank talk with RT

December 16, 2024

Elizabeth Blade

It took Syrian rebels – led by the notorious Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, designated as a terror organization by many countries across the globe – several weeks to take over Syria, ending the 24-year-long rule of Bashar Assad.

 

LIVE BLOG: Beit Hanoun School under Siege | Renewed Clashes in Jenin – Day 436

December 15,2024

Killed	Wounded	Missing
44,976	106,759	11,000

-More than 15 Palestinians were killed and others were injured when the Israeli occupation army stormed the Khalil Awida School in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.

-Armed clashes between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Palestinian Authority security forces have resumed around the Jenin camp in the northern occupied West Bank.

-According to the Palestinian Health Ministry (Gaza), 44,976 Palestinians have been killed, and 106,759 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.

Israel bombards schools and homes in Gaza, a day after Nuseirat massacre

December 14, 2024

Israel is still attacking homes and schools across the Gaza Strip, killing and injuring several people just one day after dozens were massacred in a strike on Nuseirat camp.

A Palestinian child on the rubble left by an Israeli strike on Nuseirat refugee camp, on December 13, 2024 [Ramadan Abed /Reuters]

How the US and Israel Destroyed Syria and Called it Peace

Jeffrey D. Sachs

December 12, 2024

In the famous lines of Tacitus, Roman historian, “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”

 

 A boy carries an unexploded Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) at the site of the previous evening's Israeli airstrike that targeted shipments of weapons that belonged to Syrian government forces in Qamishli, in mainly Kurdish northeastern Syria, on December 10, 2024. The UN special envoy for Syria called on Israel on December 10 to halt its military movements and bombardments in Syria, after a war monitor reported 300 air strikes since the fall of president Bashar al-Assad. (Photo by DELIL SOULEIMAN/ (Photo by Delil Souleiman / AFP via Getty Images)

Massive destruction, dozens killed in new Israeli massacre in central Gaza

December 13, 2024

Dozens remain missing after a huge massacre committed by Israeli forces in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, which has consistently been a main target for bloody attacks throughout Israel’s war against the strip. 

‘As much and as quickly as possible’: Israeli settlers eye land in Syria, Lebanon

December 12, 2024

Illy Pe’ery

Within hours of the fall of the Assad regime, Israeli forces were already pushing into Syrian territory, conquering the Syrian side of Mount Hermon/Jabal A-Shaykh and the buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that has been in place for more than half a century. But the army were not the only ones quick to react; so, too, was the Israeli settler movement.

 

Map showing the approximate locations of Israel’s military expansion into Lebanon and Syria, with darker blue indicating the most recent advances, created using data from satellite imagery, geolocation, and Israeli military statements. (Ahmad Baydoun)

Joe Biden: A Resumé of War Crimes

December 12, 2024

Gerald Sussman

A flurry of commentary has followed Joe Biden’s decision to invoke his presidential privilege in issuing a “full and unconditional pardon” to his son, Hunter Biden, who faced prison time for filing false tax statements, tax evasion, and carrying an unregistered gun. 

 

Did the US fund the Syrian rebels that toppled Assad?

December 11, 2024

After Syrian opposition forces led an offensive that rapidly swept through Syria's major cities in a matter of weeks and ultimately led to the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government, US President Joe Biden publicly took credit for the rebel takeover.

Fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces inspect damaged and abandoned military vehicles and equipment at Syria's Qamishli International Airport, on 9 December 2024 (Delil Souleiman/AFP)

Before and After

There are many philosophical questions that have persisted for millennia in human history. Finding answers to these questions has often been difficult, and in some cases, even impossible. However, as human curiosity and the drive for discovery continue to grow, responses to some of these questions are becoming more attainable. For example, a large majority of religions believe in the existence of a world beyond the one we live in. There are over ten thousand different religions around the world, but more than seventy percent of the global population adhere to just five major religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

پیش و پس

پرسش‌های فلسفی بسیاری وجود دارند که در تاریخ بشر به هزاره‌ها باز می‌گردند. یافتن پاسخ برای این سوالات دشوار، و حتی تا حدودی غیرممکن می‌باشد. با این حال، با گسترش کنجکاوی و علاقه انسان به کشف و نوآوری، پاسخ به برخی از این پرسش‌ها دست یافتنی است. به عنوان مثال، اکثریت عظیمی از مذاهب به جهانی خارج از دنیایی که ما در آن زندگی می‌کنیم اعتقاد دارند. بیش از ده‌هزار ادیان مختلف در جهان وجود دارد، در حالی که اکثریت بزرگ یا بیش از هفتاد درصد از جمعیت جهان به پنج دین مسیحیت، یهودیت، اسلام، بودائی و ​​هندو، اعتقاد دارند. عوالم عروج در برخی از این ادیان ماورأالطبیعه، عرفانی، و فریبنده است. اگرچه برخی از آن دنیاهای خارق‌العاده جذاب به نظر می‌رسند، اما اکثریت قریب به اتفاق آنها رونوشتی از یکدیگرند، به خصوص سه دین یهودیت، مسیحیت و اسلام، که به ادیان ابراهیمی شهرت دارند. با بررسی بیشتر، فلسفه اصلی این سرزمین های موعود، ساده انگارانه، تک بعدی، و حتی کودکانه به نظر می‌رسند. البته گروه‌های غیرمذهبی، آگنوستیک‌ها و آتئیست‌ها، نیز به سرعت در حال رشد هستند، که بسیاری از آنها تمایلی به فرض چیزی خارج از دنیای فیزیکی ما ندارند.ا پرسش‌های فلسفی خاصی وجود دارند که در مورد دلیل وجود ما و هدف زندگی در این جهان تحقیق می‌کنند.ا 

LIVE BLOG: Rockets from Gaza | Massacre near Kamal Adwan | Soldiers Injured – Day 432

December 11,2024

Killed	Wounded	Missing
44,805	106,257	11,000

-Two rockets were launched from the central Gaza Strip towards the Gaza envelope and reportedly fell in an open area.

-At least 18 Palestinians were killed and others were missing in an Israeli airstrike on a house near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.

-The Ziv Hospital in Safad announced it received four Israeli soldiers who had been wounded in south Lebanon, without providing any further details.

-According to the Palestinian Health Ministry (Gaza), 44,805 Palestinians have been killed, and 106,257 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.