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/QILgUHrdWRE
Peace campaigners blast government for ‘aiding and abetting’ Israel’s genocide in Gaza while announcing extra millions to prosecute Russian war criminals
THE British government was accused of “hypocrisy and double standards” today after announcing extra millions in funding to prosecute Russian war criminals in Ukraine while arming Israel’s criminal genocide in Gaza.
The Ministry of Defence said that it is to give £4.5 million to support Ukrainian documentation, investigation and prosecution of Russian war crimes.
The money comes on top of £6.2m previously committed.
…
Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German told the Morning Star: “The reek of hypocrisy and double standards coming from Whitehall has rarely been stronger.
“This latest announcement is about the most brazen yet. It is giving millions to investigate Russian war crimes while at the same time is aiding and abetting the war criminal [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu by providing weapons, military support and political succour to a government committing genocide against the Palestinians.
“If David Lammy wants to do the right thing he should stop arming Israel and demand a complete cessation to Israel’s attacks on Yemen, Lebanon and Syria as well as his ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank.”
Genocide 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/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Scenes from Israel’s siege on Kamal Adwan Hospital. On the left, the last photo of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya as he walks towards Israeli tanks. On the right, IOF forced health workers and patients to strip and evacuate the hospital. Photo: Screenshots
As part of its ethnic cleansing policies, Israel continues to systematically target medical facilities and health workers across the Gaza strip.
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) set Kamal Adwan Hospital on fire on Friday, December 27, putting the largest medical facility in the northern part of the besieged enclave out of service. Kamal Adwan is located in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip and was one of the last functioning hospitals in the area.
According to the Director of Gaza’s Health Ministry, Munir al-Bursh, the IOF ordered 350 people including 75 patients and their escorts along with 185 medical staff to evacuate the hospital, and move to a nearby school sheltering displaced people.
Gaza’s Health Ministry stated that it has completely lost contact with medics inside the Kamal Adwan Hospital since the IOF stormed the facility.
The whereabouts of the hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, are currently unknown. Dr. Safiya had been providing constant updates on Israel’s siege of the hospital for the last several months and pleading for international institutions to take action to stop Israel’s attacks. On December 2, 2024, he penned a column in the New York Times titled, “I’m One of the Last Doctors in This Hospital in Gaza. I’m Begging the World for Help.” In the essay, he wrote, “We feel as if the rest of the world is wrapped up in a different world from the one we are in. We are suffering and paying the price of the genocide that is happening to our people here in the northern Gaza Strip.”
Notably, in its report on Israel’s final siege on the hospital, the Times depicts the travesty at Kamal Adwan as collateral damage in Israel’s “offensive against Hamas militants” uncritically repeating Israel’s allegation that “the hospital was a stronghold for Hamas and that it was carrying out ‘targeted operations’ in the area.”
In a statement published on Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) slammed Israel’s arson attack on the hospital, which used to serve over 400,000 Palestinian citizens. “This morning’s raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service. Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” the statement reads.
“60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including those on ventilators, reportedly remain in the hospital. The patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed and non-functional Indonesian Hospital. WHO is deeply concerned for their safety,” the statement continues.
The WHO clarified that the raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital followed Israel’s escalating restrictions on the organization and its partners to access the hospital. The raid also came after repeated attacks on the hospital and its vicinity since early October. The organization considered the assault on the hospital as part of the systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza, labeling it as a “death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care.”
For its part, the Palestinian Presidency slammed the attack considering it as “part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of genocide and displacement against the Palestinian people”, and a “serious and blatant violation of international law and international agreements and conventions that protect medical facilities and personnel during armed conflicts.”
The Palestinian Presidency urged global health organizations, including WHO, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and other international humanitarian bodies “to fulfill their responsibilities toward stopping this crime against the Palestinian healthcare sector.”
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) condemned the attack calling it a “war crime” committed amid “international inaction and full complicity from the US administration.”
In an Al Jazeerainterview on Friday, Hamas official Osama Hamdan refuted Israeli claims that there were Palestinian fighters in the hospital and stated that Kamal Adwan Hospital has been subjected to a massacre for 75 days. Hamdan added that the attack on the hospital is part of an attempt by Israel “to end all manifestations of civilian steadfastness in northern Gaza.”
One day prior to setting the facility to fire, Israeli fighter jets launched an airstrike on a building opposite of Kamal Adwan Hospital. At least 50 people were killed in the attack, including three health workers. Earlier in the month, IOF placed booby trapped devices around the hospital, and eyewitnesses said they saw explosive robots and hidden bombs deployed around the facility.
Kamal Adwan was not the only major medical facility to be targeted by IOF in Gaza during the past two weeks. Israel also intensified its attacks on the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and the Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia refugee camp north of Gaza city, which has prompted doctors and authorities in Gaza to request immediate intervention by the international community.
Yet, despite the numerous cries for help and warnings of dangerous escalation by Gaza’s health workers, Israel has been able to proceed with the destruction of healthcare and its genocide of the Palestinian people thanks to the full backing it enjoys by the United States government.
Genocide 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/O74hZCKKdpAUK 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/QILgUHrdWRE
Protesters in the million man march in Yemen on December 27. Photo: Screenshot
Israel has escalated its attacks against Yemen, most recently launching airstrikes on civilian infrastructure at Sanaa Airport which almost resulted in the death of the WHO Director.
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) intensified aerial attacks on Yemen in the last several days, as Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces continued operations against Israel in retaliation for the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, and against Israel’s allies who attempt to bypass the blockade imposed by Ansar Allah of Israel.
On Thursday, December 26, Israeli warplanes targeted civilian facilities of Yemen’s Sanaa International Airport, including the airports’ main runway, control tower, and an aircraft, according to the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post.
At least three people were killed in the assault and 16 others injured including the assistant to the captain of a United Nations’ plane. The plane had landed in Sanaa International Airport to transport the Director-General of World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the UN resident coordinator in Yemen, Julian Harnis, shortly before the airstrike was launched.
The Yemeni Foreign Minister Jamal Amer considered the timing of the attack as a “direct affront and a mockery of the UN”, particularly as the co-pilot of the UN aircraft was injured.
For his part Ghebreyesus issued a statement on Thursday, explaining the circumstances of the airstrike on the airport, and confirming his presence along with other WHO and UN colleagues there at the time of the attack.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa, about three hours ago (around 5 pm local time), the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured. At least two people were reported killed at the airport,” the statement reads.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged. We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave,” the statement continues.
Israeli fighter jets also targeted other sites in Hodeidah governorate in western Yemen including Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations, and military infrastructure located in the ports of Hodeidah, according to IOF.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his deep concern “about the risk of further escalation and has urged all parties to cease military actions and exercise restraint.” Guterres also warned “that airstrikes on Red Sea ports and Sanaa airport pose grave risks to humanitarian operations at a time when millions of people are in need of life-saving assistance.”
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) strongly condemned the aggression on Yemen, which it said “proves the Zionist-Western alliance’s bankruptcy in facing Yemen’s resistance.” Meanwhile, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) called the onslaught “a flagrant violation of sovereignty and acts of terrorism”.
Israel claimed that it escalated its aggression on Yemen after the Yemeni Armed Forces stepped up its missile and drone attack on Israel during the past few weeks. Speaking to local media on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to launch an open war on Yemen. “We’re just getting started with them,” Netanyahu said. “We won’t allow them [to attack Israel] these days, today and any other day. We will strike them to the bitter end until they learn. As I said, Hamas learned, Hezbollah learned, and Syria learned. The Houthis will learn too,” he added.
However, the Yemeni Armed Forces defied Netanyahu’s threats by carrying out three significant military operations against the Zionist entity on Friday, December 27. The operations included targeting Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with a hypersonic missile, striking a military site in Jaffa with a drone, and the interception of a ship in the Arabian Sea after it violated the blockade imposed on Israeli ports.
The spokesperson of the Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Sare’e said in a televised statement on Friday, that these operations were carried out as part of the fifth phase of support for Gaza, and in response to Israeli aggression in Yemen, including recent airstrikes on civilian infrastructure in Sanaa and Hodeidah. Saree further emphasized that Israel’s aggression on his country “will only increase the resolve and determination of the great Yemeni people to continue supporting the Palestinian people, fulfilling their religious, moral, and humanitarian duty.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement praised the Yemeni missile strike on Lod (Ben Gurion) Airport, considering it “a legitimate response to the aggression on Sana’a Airport and Yemeni civilian facilities.”
Since the genocidal aggression on Gaza began in the aftermath of October 7, Israel has launched sporadic attacks on Yemen viewing it as one of seven fronts alongside Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, which represent the Axis of Resistance.
During the last couple of months, the Axis of Resistance received heavy blows after Gaza’s support front in Lebanon had to temporarily stop its confrontations with Israel as per the fragile interim ceasefire agreement reached last November. Following the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month, Israel destroyed the country’s military infrastructure and the transitional government showed its willingness to establish “peace” with Israel.
All these factors made Netanyahu more determined than ever to demolish the military capabilities of Yemen, even if this would mean expanding the genocidal aggression to other parts of the West Asia region at the expense of civilians.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a press briefing at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on December 10, 2024. (Photo: Lian Yi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
State media reports at least four people were killed and 21 others injured.
As part of Israel’s assault on various countries across the Middle East, Israeli fighter jets on Thursday bombed multiple sites in Yemen, including Sanaa International Airport, killing multiple people and threatening the life of a leading United Nations official.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and colleagues were at the airport, wrapping up a trip “to negotiate the release of U.N. staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in Yemen,” when the attack occurred, the agency leader said on social media. “We continue to call for the detainees’ immediate release.”
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa, about two hours ago, the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” Tedros explained, noting the reported deaths. “The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge—just a few meters from where we were—and the runway were damaged. We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave. My U.N. and WHO colleagues and I are safe. Our heartfelt condolences to the families whose loved ones lost their lives in the attack.”
According to The New York Times: “At least four people were killed and 21 others injured in the attack on Thursday after Israel struck the international airport in Sana and the city of al Hodeida, the Saba state news agency said, citing Yemen’s Health Ministry. The report could not be independently verified.”
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, told the Times that Israel had no prior knowledge that the WHO leader would be at the airport during the attack. “We didn’t know,” he said. “We wish him well.”
It's hard to imagine the Israelis didn't know Tedros & his staff were at the airport before their strike. Either this proves their incompetence or indifference in targeting civilians & NGOs (thus undermining their claims of judicious targeting), or prove they do it deliberately https://t.co/p4F7Uwe32J
The IDF said in a statement posted on social media that “fighter jets conducted intelligence-based strikes” with approval from Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The targets that were struck by the IDF include military infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime for its military activities in both the Sanaa International Airport and the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations,” the military continued. “In addition, the IDF struck military infrastructure in the al Hodeida, Salif, and Ras Kanatib ports on the western coast. These military targets were used by the Houthi terrorist regime to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials.”
Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the U.S.-armed IDF has not only decimated the Gaza Strip and killed over 45,000 Palestinians there but also ramped up strikes on other groups tied to Iran, including the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Additionally, Israel has exploited the recent collapse of Syrian former President Bashar al-Assad’s government, seizing more territory in that country.
“The targeting of Sanaa International Airport and other civilian infrastructure is a Zionist crime against the entire Yemeni people,” a Houthi spokesperson, Mohammed Abdulsalam, said in a statement. “If the Zionist enemy thinks that its crimes will deter Yemen from supporting Gaza, it is delusional.”
The strikes on Yemen came a day after Netanyahu said that “the Houthis, too, will learn what Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime, and others have learned, and even if it takes time, this lesson will be understood across the Middle East.”
Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza has led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas leader.
Palestinian Catholics attend Christmas mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine on December 24, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace,” said one little girl whose grandmother was killed by an Israeli sniper.
Palestinian Catholics attend Christmas mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine on December 24, 2024.
(Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Another Somber Christmas in Palestine as Gaza Genocide Continues
“I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace,” said one little girl whose grandmother was killed by an Israeli sniper.
From the illegally occupied “little town of Bethlehem” in the West Bank to a pair of churches in Gaza where Israel’s bombs and bullets have killed clerics and congregants alike, Palestinian Christians marked another somber Christmas amid a relentless Israeli assault whose victims on Wednesday included refugees sheltering in tents and medical staff and patients at a besieged hospital.
For the second year in a row, public Christmas celebrations were canceled at the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, which is built over the spot where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born.
“This should be a time of joy and celebration. But Bethlehem is a sad town in solidarity with our siblings in Gaza,” Lutheran Pastor Munther Isaac said during his Christmas sermon at a church whose nativity display again had baby Jesus lying in a pile of rubble.
“It’s hard to believe that another Christmas has come upon us and the genocide has not stopped,” Isaac added. “Decision-makers are content to let this continue. To them, Palestinians are dispensable.”
In Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian Christians huddled in two churches amid ongoing attacks by Israeli forces.
“This year, we will conduct our religious rites and that’s it,” Ramez Souri told The New York Times at the St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza City. “We’re still in mourning and far too sad to celebrate, or do anything except to pray for peace.”
Hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering on the grounds of the 12th century church—Gaza’s oldest—when Israeli forces bombed it in October 2023, killing 18 people including Souri’s three children and relatives of former Republican U.S. Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan.
In a pre-Christmas homily at Holy Family Church in Gaza City—Gaza’s only Catholic church— Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told congregants, “You have become the light of our church in the entire world.”
“At Christmas, we celebrate the light and ask: Where is this light?” Pizzaballa continued. “The light is here, in this church.”
“I don’t know when or how this war will end, and every time we approach the end, it seems like we start anew,” he added. “But sooner or later, the war will end, and we must not lose hope. When the war ends, we will rebuild everything: our schools, our hospitals, and our homes. We must remain resilient and full of strength.”
Like St. Porphyrius, Holy Family has suffered a deadly Israeli attack. Last December, an Israeli sniper shot Nahida Khalil Anton, the elderly matriarch of the largest Catholic family in Gaza, as she crossed a courtyard in the church compound on her way to the bathroom. Her daughter Samar was shot in the head when she rushed out to try and help her mother.
Both women died. Seven other people were shot and wounded. Israeli soldiers and veterans have said that they were given permission and even orders to shoot anyone who moves in parts of Gaza.
"I wish the war would end and we could return to our homes in peace." A Christian Palestinian girl in Gaza wishes for peace on Christmas Day amid Israel's war, at the Holy Family Church in Gaza City.
On Sunday, Pope Francis—who in a new book called for a genocide investigation of Israel’s war on Gaza—said: “Yesterday, children have been bombed. This is cruelty; this is not war.”
The cruelty continued on Christmas as Israeli attacks throughout Gaza killed at least 13 people, according to officials. The dead include people sheltering in a tent northwest of Khan Younis, Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteer Alaa al-Derawi—who was shot in the chest while at work transporting patients—and Walaa al-Faranji, a well-known fashion designer, author, and photographer who was killed along with her husband Ahmed Salama in an airstrike on their home in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Local media also reported continued Israeli shelling and attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, where staff and scores of patients including premature babies have endured weeks of siege conditions.
All told, Gaza and international agencies say that at least 45,361 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and more than 107,800 others wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. At least 11,000 other Gazans are missing and believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings. Millions more Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Thousands more people have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Last month, the International Criminal Court, also based in The Hague, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, as well as for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Back at St. Porphyrius, parishioners pooled what little food they could find to prepare a communal Christmas Eve meal. Although many Gazan Christians have expressed fears that their community—one of the oldest Christian communities in the world—could be wiped out by Israel’s genocidal onslaught, the holiday meal represented a faint glimmer of hope.
“We wanted to do something to show that we’re still here,” Souri explained, “despite it all.”
