U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands during a news conference at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Israel, February 16, 2025
ISRAEL received a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs from the United States after President Donald Trump lifted a block imposed by his predecessor, the Defence Ministry said yesterday.
The unguided 2,000-pound bombs can tear through concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.
Exports of these munitions were held up by the Biden administration over concerns about their impact on densely populated areas in Gaza.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said the new munitions shipment was a “significant asset” for the Israeli Air Force and demonstrated the “strong alliance” between Israel and the US.
The delivery comes amid concerns over whether the ceasefire for Israel’s war on Gaza will hold.
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Thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration expressing support for Palestinian rights in London on February 15, 2025. (Photo: Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images)
An 87-year-old Holocaust survivor called the U.S. president’s plan to permanently force Palestinians out of Gaza “completely immoral and illegal, and also impractical and absurd.”
Thousands of people marched to the United States Embassy in London on Saturday to protest President Donald Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan for the Gaza Strip, a proposal that has been roundly condemned as unlawful and monstrous by the U.N., international human rights organizations, and Palestinians living in the enclave decimated by relentless Israeli bombing.
The march came after Trump doubled down on his proposal for the U.S. to “take over” Gaza after forcibly and permanently displacing Palestinians from the territory.
“Think of it as a big real estate site, and the United States is going to own it and we’ll slowly—very slowly, we’re in no rush—develop it,” Trump told reporters last weekend.
Marchers carried signs Sunday expressing contempt for the president’s proposal, which Amnesty Internationaldenounced as “inflammatory, outrageous, and shameful.”
Protesters march to the U.S. Embassy in London on February 15, 2025. (Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Stephen Kapos, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, toldAFP on Saturday that Trump’s proposal is “completely immoral and illegal, and also impractical and absurd.”
“It’s not going to happen,” Kapos added, “but it does a lot of damage simply stating that as an endgame.”
The mass demonstration in London, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organizations, followed news that Hamas freed three additional Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for the release of more than 360 Palestinians who were held in Israeli prisons.
The exchange was part of a tenuous cease-fire deal reached in January after 15 months of incessant U.S.-backed Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
The assault’s impact on Palestinians in Gaza was, and continues to be, catastrophic. According to an article published in The Lancet earlier this month, Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip “generated a life expectancy loss of more than 30 years during the first 12 months of the war, nearly halving prewar levels.”
“Actual losses are likely to be higher,” the researchers noted, stressing that their estimate was conservative and “did not account for the indirect effect of the war.”
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAPower-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
A protest outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court, February 13, 2025Photo: Jennie Walsh
Hundreds protest outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court as Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists attend court
HUNDREDS rallied outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court today to demand the government stop criminalising protest.
The large and noisy protest was held outside the court in support of Palestine marches chief steward Chris Nineham, who had his first court appearance today.
Mr Nineham, also long-standing vice-chair of the Stop the War Coalition, was violently arrested by police at the end of an entirely peaceful protest for Palestine in London last month.
He has been charged, together with Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal, with breaches of the Public Order Act.
Mr Jamal’s own hearing is next week. His was among 77 arrests made by police at the demonstration.
Demonstrators heard speeches linking the state attack on the right to protest with the overriding issue of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
People take part in a national march for Palestine, supported by more than 150 Irish civil society groups, in Dublin, January 25, 2025
TENS of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators are set to flood the streets of London on Saturday to demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
The march and rally comes as the current ceasefire teeters on the brink of collapse, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatening to resume bombing and US president Donald Trump declaring “let all hell break loose” after Hamas delayed the release of more hostages, citing Israeli violations of the deal.
Protesters will gather at midday on Saturday at Whitehall before marching to the US embassy.
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Minister of Justice and Correctional Services of South Africa Ronald Lamola answers the questions of press members related to the public hearings of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands on January 11, 2024 [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]
South Africa has vowed not to withdraw its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), despite the Trump administration’s threats and aid cut.
There is “no chance” South Africa could withdraw the case it filed in December 2023, Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told the Financial Times.
“Standing by our principles sometimes has consequences, but we remain firm that this is important for the world, and the rule of law,” he added.
South Africa was the first nation to drag Israel to the ICJ over its genocidal war on Gaza that has claimed more than 48,000 lives and reduced the enclave to rubble. A ceasefire that took hold on 19 January is currently in place.
Last week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting financial aid to South Africa in retaliation for a new land appropriation law it claims seizes property from the country’s White minority, as well as the ICJ case against Israel.
The US also alleges that South Africa is working with Iran to “develop commercial, military and nuclear arrangements.”
“The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its ‘undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests,” the order read.
“While we do have a good relationship with Iran, we don’t have any nuclear programmes with them, nor any trade to speak of,” Lamola said.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently signed the expropriation bill into law, which will allow the state to expropriate land without compensation if it is “just, equitable and in the public interest.”
The government says the law aims to address apartheid’s past injustices, and that Trump’s accusations are lies, distortions and misinformation.
According to Ramaphosa, the country was only receiving HIV/AIDS prevention funding from the US.
After South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel alleging violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention in the Gaza Strip, several countries joined the case including Nicaragua, Colombia, Cuba, Libya, Mexico, Spain, Belize and Turkiye.
The International Criminal Court has separately issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Trump has also sanctioned the ICC for investing Israeli officials.
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Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
