Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement that said the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza that continued through Friday “is not over yet.” So far, the bombardment that began on Monday has killed 137 Palestinians in Gaza, including 36 children.
“This is not yet over. We will do everything to restore security to our cities and our people,” Netanyahu said. The Israeli leader also thanked President Biden and other Western leaders for their support.
“I would like to say a word of appreciation to my friend President Biden and to other friends — the President of France, the British Prime Minister, the Chancellor of Austria, the Chancellor of Germany, and others,” Netanyahu said. “They have upheld our inherent and self-evident right to defend ourselves.”
The US has been standing firmly behind Israel while bombs have been pounding Gaza. On Thursday, President Biden said the bombing campaign was not a “significant overreaction.” While at least seven Israelis have been killed by rocket fire from Gaza this week, the initial barrage of rockets that Israel responded to did minimal damage and killed no one. Israel’s first round of airstrikes this week killed 20 people, including 10 children.
On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart and expressed the US’s “ironclad” commitment to Israel. At the UN, the US has blocked at least two statements condemning the violence and delayed a public meeting on the crisis.
The US has been calling for de-escalation, but the Israelis show no sign of slowing down and rejected a ceasefire offer from Hamas on Wednesday night. US envoy Hady Amr, a deputy assistant secretary of state, was dispatched to Israel to seek a de-escalation.
Rockets were initially fired out of Gaza after days of Israeli violence against Palestinians in East Jerusalem. In one incident, Israeli forces stormed al-Aqsa mosque, discharging tear gas and rubber bullets, wounding hundreds of unarmed Muslim worshippers. Tensions have also boiled over in the West Bank, where at least 11 Palestinians were killed on Friday.
Why should he – as some Israeli commentators said Hamas needs him & he needs Hamas. They freeze out the P.A. and he freezes out competition.
…and deflects a criminal investigation.
Israel maintains and constantly adds to a target list. They wait for an opportunity to kill that list.
It is not over yet because they have not yet worked through the full target list.
When they’ve finished, they’ll begin compiling a list for the next opportunity they get to work down their list.
Yes, except that they don’t wait for an opportunity. They provoke it at a convenient time, -like now with BB’s legal-political difficulties. When you can’t solve a problem, you cut the Gordian knot.
He “wants to thank Biden”, …. Indeed, it’s all on the American dime. He should be thanking the US taxpayer, history’s all-time greatest sucker.
“The US has been calling for de-escalation, but the Israelis show no sign of slowing down and rejected a ceasefire offer from Hamas on Wednesday night.”
If they were serious about wanting a de-escalation they would only have to threaten to cut the Apartheid practicing parasite’s annual US taxpayer gift and join the other 14 members of the UN security council in condemning Israel’s violence. Instead we get an “unwavering” and “ironclad” ok to continue killing children from “friend” Joe.
Israel, led by a thug, continues to function via IDF as an international thug.
How can anyone justify destructive attacks on civilian buildings, bomb shelters, civilians themselves?
Oh wait, the chorus from the rabid zionist choir in Wash DC, the biden zionists, et al, shout hallelujah and “Israel must defend itself.”
Sickening beyond belief!
Israeli bombings can no more be justified than Arab missiles-and here comes the chorus from the totally unbiased “antiwar” nest
Israel is an illegal occupier. The Palestinians have the legal right to resist up to and including use of force.
As for the war-crime charge of “indiscriminate” rocketing, I’m certain were the US to supply them with equally sophisticated systems, they’d happily prefer Israeli “liders, commanders, and militants”, along with Israeli gov’t offices, banks, schools, temples, armories, etc., same as BB; and, like our own War Party tally the dead women & children as “collateral damage”.
So when a group of native Americans tell you to get out of your home, you will leave.
Good point. And so it very well ought to trouble the conscience of America. And all the more reason for expiation, … against all the continuing manifest forms of US aggression/predation. Just as presently does a significant fraction of Israeli’s against Israel’s crimes.
Israeli ethnically cleansing Muslin Israelis out of Jerusalem and attacking a peaceful religious observance by Muslims in Jerusalem are the thuggish actions of Israel that led to the current situation.
Sure, lets say that. And lets also say one side is just a tad more brutal. Hamas can only dream.
“Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over the next decade, is not exercising “the right to defend itself.” It is carrying out mass murder. It is a war crime.”
“The current attacks have already targeted several residential high-rises including buildings that housed more than a dozen local and international press agencies, government buildings, roads, public facilities, agricultural lands, two schools and a mosque.”
https://www.salon.com/2021/05/15/israels-big-lie-this-isnt-self-defense–its-a-war-crime-aided-and-abetted-by-the-us/
Hamas is more than happy to absorb large losses and play the victim.
Here’s a perfect example -Gazans are so degraded a specimen of the species they don’t even love their children- of the sicko racism that animates Zionists.
Whereas Israel only requires small losses (sometimes no losses at all) to play the victim.
I’d reply but some others already bitch slapped you.
I’d reply but some others already bitch slapped you.
Let’s just say one side has a well-armed military, supported and armed with high-tech weaponry by the US taxpayers, and the other side does not.
A link to add to the description of civilian carnage:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/05/israel-punishes-media-for-reporting-its-escalation-in-palestine.html#mor
A then there is this to add to absolute absurdity of Biden’s comment that Israel’s bloodbath is not disproportionate:
Niten avoiding civilian casualties:
Live Updates: Netanyahu Tells Biden Israel ‘Doing Everything’ to Avoid Civilian Casualties in Gaza
Yep everyone has the right to defend themselves unless you happen to be one of those Palestinians, you know they are just not like us civilized people, “all they understand is brute force” and they make all those strange noises when you squash them, just not our kind of people, so easy to manipulate, so dumb, they play right into our hands when ever we need a distraction for whatever the reason.
Why don’t they call it what it is – genocide.
https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-by-ambassador-linda-thomas-greenfield-at-a-un-security-council-briefing-on-the-situation-in-israel-the-west-bank-and-gaza/
Washington’s attempt to play the center or support both sides within the current Israel-Palestinian conflict. Greenfield sounds like a broken record.
While Washington remains “bogged down” in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere, hypocrisy and indifference are reflected in US Middle East policy.