Israeli security forces have been put on heightened alert after two Palestinians were killed during a massive protest in the West Bank.
Thousands of Palestinian Arabs rioted in Qalandiya, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, on Thursday night.
The riots turned into clashes when the rioters threw rocks and firebombs at IDF and Border Police officers who were on the scene. Some of the rioters opened live fire at the security forces, who responded by using riot dispersal means.
No Israeli officers were hurt in the clashes, but Palestinian Authority officials claimed that Israeli security forces shot dead one man and wounded 150 other people.
PA security and medical officials named the man as Mohammed Al-Aaraj, 25, and said he was among at least 10,000 people clashing with soldiers and border police.
They said that at least 150 people were injured by live fire in the protest, and five were in critical condition.
The IDF told AFP that live fire was used in a confrontation with thousands of rioters after they threw rocks, firecrackers and petrol bombs at soldiers and border police.
Channel 2 News reported that 39 people were arrested during the riots.
Earlier on Thursday night, clashes also broke out at the Temple Mount, as Arabs threw rocks and targeted police with firecrackers.
Two officers were lightly wounded. Ten rioters were arrested.
Kol Yisrael radio that Palestinian Arabs and troops also clashed around the Shechem, Hevron, Bethlehem and Tulkarem.
The victims were among an estimated 10,000 people who clashed violently with soldiers and border police at a checkpoint in Qalandiya, between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
The protest came hours after 15 people were killed and more than 200 injuredwhen a UN-run school in the city of Beit Hanoun, Gaza, was hit by an Israeli artillery shell.
Sky's David Bowden in Ashkelon, near Israel's border with Gaza, said: "After Friday prayers who knows what might happen. We are coming to the end of Ramadan. All of this is boiling up now."
Israel's security cabinet is meeting later to decide whether to expand its operation or consider a US-drafted proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza.
At least 90 people were injured in Thursday night's checkpoint clashes in the West Bank, with reports live fire was being used.
An Israeli army spokeswoman told the AFP news agency soldiers used "riot disposal means" to control the protest.
She said: "There are thousands of rioters there. They are rolling burning tyres and throwing Molotov cocktails and fireworks at soldiers and border police."
The school that was hit in Beit Hanoun was being used as a shelter by hundreds of Palestinians who fled their homes two weeks ago because of airstrikes.
It is the fourth time a UN facility has been hit during the recent conflict.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "I was shocked and appalled by what has happened in Beit Hanoun. It is totally unacceptable."
Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN's Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, said a window to allow civilians to leave the area was never granted.
He added: "The consequences of that appear to be tragic."
But the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), posting on its official Twitter feed, said the Red Cross had received its message to evacuate civilians from the school, but Hamas had prevented people evacuating the area.
The IDF added: "Several rockets launched from Gaza toward Israel fell short and hit Beit Hanoun."
[The pictures in this link are dramatic and reveal the extent of these riots throughout Israel]
There are major clashes occurring currently in The West Bank tonight as claims of 10s of thousands and Palestinians clash with Israeli soldiers. Sadly, as the photos below reveal taken moments ago show, things appear set to get very much worse.
Israeli security forces have shot dead three Palestinians during a massive protest in the West Bank, according to medical officials.
The three people were among an estimated 10,000 people who are clashing with soldiers and border police at a checkpoint in Qalandiya, between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
The protest came hours after 15 people were killed and more than 200 injured when a UN school in the city of Beit Hanoun was hit by an artillery shell.
At least 90 people were injured in the checkpoint clashes, with some reports that live fire was being used.
An Israeli army spokeswoman told the AFP news agency soldiers were using "riot disposal means" to control the protest.
She said: "There are thousands of rioters there. They are rolling burning tyres and throwing Molotov cocktails and fireworks at soldiers and border police.
"The soldiers are responding with riot disposal means."
Iranians rallied nationwide on Friday in a show of support for Palestinians as archfoe Israel pursued its campaign against Hamas and other groups in the Gaza Strip.
Demonstrations were held in Tehran and more than 700 towns and cities across the country on the last day of prayer and rest of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, state television reported.
In the capital, footage showed demonstrators, carrying placards proclaiming “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” converging from nine different points on Tehran University in the city center.
“The Islamic world must in unison declare this day one of anger, hatred, unity and resistance against Israel,” President Hassan Rouhani said at the Tehran demonstration.
Rouhani, who has overseen a fledgling rapprochement with the West condemned, “those who stay silent in the face of the Zionist regime’s crimes”.
“The world demands an end to the Gaza blockade, opening the Rafah crossing and halting attacks on Gaza so its people can live normally,” he said.
He was referring to the demands of Hamas for any truce with Israel to end the deadly violence. The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt is the territory’s only one not controlled by Israel.
General Hossein Salami, second in command of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, struck a defiant tone in a speech broadcast on state television.
“Now no place in the occupied territories is safe for the Zionists. The missiles of Palestinian fighters have a range well beyond what the Zionists believe,” he said.
“We will continue house by house and avenge the blood of martyrs shed in Palestine.”
Salami’s sentiments were echoed by demonstrators.
“My message to the Palestinians is this: continue the struggle until your last drop of blood. Islamic countries, especially Iran, are behind you to save you,” a young protester called Hassan told AFP.
On Thursday, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, told state television’s Arabic service that Tehran had provided Hamas with the technology it has used to rain down rockets on Israel.The riots turned into clashes when the rioters threw rocks and firebombs at IDF and Border Police officers who were on the scene. Some of the rioters opened live fire at the security forces, who responded by using riot dispersal means.
No Israeli officers were hurt in the clashes, but Palestinian Authority officials claimed that Israeli security forces shot dead one man and wounded 150 other people.
PA security and medical officials named the man as Mohammed Al-Aaraj, 25, and said he was among at least 10,000 people clashing with soldiers and border police.
They said that at least 150 people were injured by live fire in the protest, and five were in critical condition.
The IDF told AFP that live fire was used in a confrontation with thousands of rioters after they threw rocks, firecrackers and petrol bombs at soldiers and border police.
Channel 2 News reported that 39 people were arrested during the riots.
Earlier on Thursday night, clashes also broke out at the Temple Mount, as Arabs threw rocks and targeted police with firecrackers.
Two officers were lightly wounded. Ten rioters were arrested.
Kol Yisrael radio that Palestinian Arabs and troops also clashed around the Shechem, Hevron, Bethlehem and Tulkarem.
In what could prove a turning point in the war in Gaza, 15 civilians were killed and as many as 200 more were wounded Thursday afternoon in the bombardment of a UN school – an assault that both sides claim might well be the fault of the other.
“We can confirm that [Palestinian] terror rockets that were fired from that area landed in the neighborhood of the UN facility,” said Cap. Eytan Buchman of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, asserting that the death and destruction may have been caused by errant rockets fired by Hamas or another militant organization.
UNRWA Spokesman Chris Gunness seemed to confirm that Hamas projectiles were fired in the area, writing on twitter that it’s “being reported there were Hamas rockets falling in Beit Hanoun today.”
But Israel’s Channel 2 news, quoting army sources, said nine mortar shells were fired by the IDF in the area of the UNRWA school in Beit Hanoun, and one errant shell “possibly hit the schoolyard.” It said the IDF had come under fire from Hamas in the area, and that a Hamas rocket might also have been to blame. The fire might have come “from both sides,” its military reporter Roni Daniel speculated.
A Hamas statement in a Ma’an news article called the attack on the school an “ugly crime” for which the Israelis “will pay.”
Robert Turner, the director for UNRWA, told Al Jazeera that the location of the facility “was conveyed to the Israelis,” and that the school was “monitored [to ensure] that our neutrality was maintained.”
NATO’s Europe commander advocates stockpiling a base in Poland with enough weapons, ammunition and other supplies to support a rapid deployment of thousands of troops against Russia, British media reported.
General Philip Breedlove’s idea would be presented to members of the alliance at the upcoming NATO summit in Wales in September, according to The Times.
The general told a briefing in Naples this week that NATO needed “pre-positioned supplies, pre-positioned capabilities and a basing area ready to rapidly accept follow-on forces.”
Several locations for the future stockpile are planned, with the Multinational Corps Northeast, a base in Szczecin near the Polish-German border being the leading contender.
“It would be a 24/7 fully functioning headquarters that forces could quickly fall in on to respond rapidly when needed,” the British newspaper cites a source familiar with the expected proposition as saying.
Breedlove has been advocating a build-up of NATO assets in Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis in the secession of Ukraine’s Crimea to Russia. The alliance has already strengthened its presence in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea and deployed additional military aircraft in Eastern Europe. It said the moves were needed to boost the confidence of eastern NATO members in the alliance’s ability to protect them from Russian aggression.
The stockpiling of supplies is just a step short of a permanent massive deployment of foreign NATO troops in Poland. The alliance says it is needed for a rapid response to a Russian incursion, although Russian generals would probably view this as a possible preparation for a blitzkrieg attack on Russia.
Moscow considers the build-up of NATO troops in Europe as part of a hostile policy aimed at placing the alliance’s military resources closer to its borders. Russia’s current military doctrine allows the use of all weapons in its possession, including tactical nuclear weapons, in response to a conventional force attack on Russia.
Despite the conclusion by US intelligence that there is no evidence of Russian involvement in the destruction of the Malaysian airliner and all lives onboard, Washington is escalating the crisis and shepherding it toward war.
Twenty-two US senators have introduced into the 113th Congress, Second Session, a bill, S.2277, “To prevent further Russian aggression toward Ukraine and other sovereign states in Europe and Eurasia, and for other purposes.” https://beta.congress.gov/113/bills/s2277/BILLS-113s2277is.pdf The bill is before the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Note that prior to any evidence of any Russian aggression, there are already 22 senators lined up in behalf of preventing further Russian aggression.
Accompanying this preparatory propaganda move to create a framework for war, hot or cold with Russia, NATO commander General Philip Breedlove announced his plan for a deployment of massive military means in Eastern Europe that would permit lightening responses against Russia in order to protect Europe from Russian aggression.
There we have it again: Russian Aggression. Repeat it enough and it becomes real.
The existence of “Russian aggression” is assumed, not demonstrated. Neither Breedlove nor the senators make any reference to Russian war plans for an attack on Europe or any other countries. There are no references to Russian position papers and documents setting forth a Russian expansionist ideology or a belief declared by Moscow that Russians are “exceptional, indispensable people” with the right to exercise hegemony over the world. No evidence is presented that Russia has infiltrated the communication systems of the entire world for spy purposes. There is no evidence that Putin has Obama’s or Obama’s daughters’ private cell phone conversations or that Russia downloads US corporate secrets for the benefit of Russian businesses.
Nevertheless, the NATO commander and US senators see an urgent need to create blitzkrieg capability for NATO on Russia’s borders.
However you look at this, it comprises a declaration of war. Moreover, these provocative and expensive moves are presented as necessary to counter Russian aggression for which there is no evidence.
How do we characterize a bill that is not merely thoughtless, unnecessary, and dangerous, but also more Orwellian than Orwell? I am open to suggestions.
Ukraine as it currently exists is an ahistorical state with artificial boundaries. Ukraine presently consists of part of what was once a larger entity plus former Russian provinces added to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic by Soviet leaders. When the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia permitted Ukraine’s independence, under US pressure Russia mistakenly permitted Ukraine to take with it the former Russian provinces.
When Washington executed its coup in Kiev last year, the Russophobes who grabbed power began threatening in word and deed the Russian populations in eastern and southern Ukraine. The Crimeans voted to reunite with Russia and were accepted. This reunification was grossly misrepresented by Western propaganda. When other former Russian provinces voted likewise, the Russian government, kowtowing to Western propaganda, did not grant their requests. Instead, Russian president Putin called for Kiev and the former Russian provinces to work out an agreement that would keep the provinces within Ukraine.
Kiev and its Washington master did not listen. Instead, Kiev launched military attacks on the provinces and was conducting bombing attacks on the provinces at the moment the Malaysian airliner was downed.
Russia suggested on Thursday that the United States was trying to fabricate evidence that separatists in eastern Ukraine shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
Anatoly Antonov, deputy defence minister, said Washington's claims that pro-Russian rebels fired a missile that hit the plane on July 17 "mostly cited social networks" and did not correspond to reality.
Mr Antonov said US intelligence experts had claimed they could "prove the guilt of the [pro-Russian] militia and almost Russia itself" and were in possession of technical data and satellite photographs to back up their accusation.
"So where is this evidence?" he asked on the Rossiya-24 channel. "Why is it not presented to the public? Is it, if I may say so, still being finished off?"
Barack Obama, the US president, said earlier this week that MH17 was brought down by a surface-to-air missile that was fired from "territory that is controlled by Russian separatists". Samantha Powers, US ambassador to the UN, went further adding "we cannot rule out technical assistance from Russian personnel in operating the systems".
US intelligence officials appeared to backtrack somewhat later, saying they had no definitive evidence about who exactly fired the missile, or about Russian involvement. However, the officials said it was implausible that Ukrainian forces fired the missile, and they still believed the separatists were likely to blame.
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2 comments:
It feels like we're so close but, so far at the same time!
Come get us, Lord! I'm ready to go Home!
Thats one reason its so hard to be a prophecy watcher - hang in there Audio - so many of us feel exactly the same way.
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