Drone sightings in Ocean County and other part of the state are down this week. This comes after state and federal authorities, who previously dismissed the sightings as planes, planets, and stars, started looking into it.
According to Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy, whose agency operates an oceanfront drone command center, sightings are also down.
After reports of large car-sized drones flying over military bases, trailing Coast Guard vessels, and swarming the beachhead at up to 50 strong, they have suddenly stopped appearing.
For weeks, unexplained drones appeared in the skies over New Jersey, capturing the attention of residents and raising concerns among officials. These weren’t hobbyist drones buzzing innocuously through the air—witnesses reported seeing larger, more sophisticated devices operating in what appeared to be a coordinated manner. And now, just as suddenly as they appeared, the drones have vanished.
What hasn’t disappeared, however, are the questions about their origin and purpose. Neither state nor federal agencies have provided any concrete explanations, leaving residents to wonder: What exactly was going on?
The Drone Sightings
Reports of the mysterious drones came from various parts of New Jersey, often in less populated areas or near infrastructure such as power plants or highways. Witnesses described their size as larger than consumer drones and noted their unusual flight patterns, suggesting they weren’t being operated by hobbyists.
The sightings followed a pattern seen in other parts of the country in recent years, where swarms of drones were spotted moving in grids or formations, raising suspicions that they were part of military exercises or private sector testing. However, no entity—public or private—has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the New Jersey drones.
A Silent Government Response
Requests for information from agencies such as the FAA, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security have yielded little insight. The FAA, which oversees the airspace in which the drones were seen, offered general statements about drone regulations but declined to address the specific incidents.
State officials have expressed similar frustration, with some local law enforcement agencies stating they lack the resources to track and identify drones of this size and sophistication. This lack of transparency from higher levels of government has only deepened public unease.
The federal government’s silence may stem from national security concerns, as disclosing certain operations could compromise their effectiveness. However, this explanation offers little comfort to those who feel the public has a right to know whether potentially invasive or hazardous activity was taking place in their communities.
While some leaders such as U.S. Senator Cory Booker, U.S. Congressmen Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew raised the red flag on these drones, Governor Phil Murphy and the Administration of President Joe Biden have dismissed any concerns to public safety and national security.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy went as far as telling New Jersey to “calm down” over the drone hysteria.
Like other sightings around the world, they just stopped. Perhaps it was a surveillance operation, and the foreign agent or dark business entity already had all the data they needed.
Why Did the Drones Disappear?
One of the most puzzling aspects of this mystery is the sudden disappearance of the drones. If the drones were part of a sanctioned operation, it’s possible the activity was limited to a brief trial period. Alternatively, increased public attention may have led whoever was behind the operation to relocate or pause the activity.
A more concerning possibility is that the drones were operating without authorization. If this were the case, their disappearance could signal an attempt to avoid further detection as officials ramped up their inquiries.
What Comes Next?
For now, New Jerseyans are left without answers. Are the skies truly clear, or will the drones return? If they were part of a government program, will officials eventually provide details, or is this destined to remain an unresolved mystery?
More broadly, these sightings raise critical questions about the monitoring and regulation of drones, especially as their use becomes increasingly sophisticated. Whether they were conducting surveillance, mapping, or tests, understanding who is operating drones in our skies—and for what purpose—should be a priority for regulators.
Until clearer answers emerge, this mystery serves as a stark reminder of the challenges posed by emerging technologies in an era of limited transparency. The disappearance of the drones may have ended the sightings, but for many, the concerns they raised are far from resolved.
As of noon, the Ukrainska Pravda media outlet, citing its sources in the Air Force, reported that the RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental strategic ballistic missile struck Dnipro overnight.
“Between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m. on Nov. 21, Russian troops attacked the city of Dnipro, hitting enterprises and critical infrastructure,” the Air Force stated.
[On November 20, a demonstration strike was carried out by the Russian Aerospace Forces on
Yuzhmash (rocket factory) in Dnepropetrovsk.
They hit, as the Ukrainian media write, the RS-26 Rubezh ICBM. The rocket flew from the Kapustin Yar test site for less than five minutes. The video shows that there are six flashes in a row and in each there are several traces of falling missiles. This is very similar to the use of separable heads of individual guidance. However, no explosions were observed, that is, it was a kinetic impact by weight: https://eadaily.com/en/news/2024/11/21/the-blow-to-yuzhmash-caused-panic-in-the-west-the-kremlin-is-watching-the-reaction]
“The assault included an ICBM launched from Russia’s Astrakhan region, a Kh-47M2 Kinzhal aeroballistic missile fired from a MiG-31K jet in the Tambov region, and seven Kh-101 cruise missiles launched by Tu-95MS bombers near the Volgograd region.”
Graham argued Israel would be justified in obliterating Gaza because America did it to Japan 80 years ago.
Amanda Yen
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered a baffling comparison of Israel’s war on Gaza to the U.S. decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan during World War II, telling Israel to “do whatever you have to do” to finish the military campaign.
Speaking to NBC’s Kristin Welker on Meet the Press Sunday morning, Graham made the argument that Israel would be justified in slaughtering civilians in Gaza by likening the situation to the U.S.’s war with Japan eight decades ago. He suggested Israel would be right to flatten the Gaza strip—home to 2.2 million Palestinians, half of whom are children—simply because the U.S. did it to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1940s.
“So when we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima, Nagasaki, with nuclear weapons,” Graham began.
The senator continued to call the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki “the right decision” by the U.S. That decision ended the war with Japan, but killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians between the initial blasts and the deadly radiation that followed.
“Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can’t afford to lose, and work with them to minimize casualties,” Graham insisted.
It was unclear how he believed the U.S. and Israel could work to “minimize casualties,” since bombs tend not to discriminate between civilians and militants upon detonation.
Graham’s comments were so extreme that even Welker was taken aback, unsuccessfully attempting to interject as the senator talked over her.
“Can I say this?” Graham continued. “Why is it okay for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why is it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay.”
Of course, the presumption that the U.S. was justified in nuking Japan to end World War II has been contested by historians and other critics for decades. Those bombs also decimated nearly all of Hiroshima’s and Nagasaki’s medical infrastructures, making it nearly impossible to deliver aid to the injured and dying, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Graham’s comments came as Israel appears poised to launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah, which the U.N. and the Biden administration have warned would be catastrophic for the 1.4 million people sheltering there. On Sunday, as Graham went on national television to suggest incinerating Gaza, the U.N. secretary general pleaded once more to prevent the area from spiraling into all-out devastation.
GRAPHIC PHOTOS WARNING: The following highly distressing images depict death and severe malnourishment.
Yazan al-Kafarneh, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy, receives medical treatment at Abu Yusuf al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, Gaza, on Feb. 28. Yazan died of severe malnourishment in Rafah on March 4. Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images
Yazan al-Kafarneh, a Palestinian boy whose emaciated appearance offered the world a stark illustration of Gaza’s accelerating starvation crisis, has become one of the latest children in the territory to die of severe malnourishment.
Yazan was receiving medical treatment with the few resources available at Abu Yusuf al-Najjar Hospital in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are trying to survive without adequate shelter or food.
Graphic photos taken on Feb. 28 and March 2, which appear below, show Yazan emaciated and bedridden while covered in blankets and receiving fluids intravenously. The photos were reposted online by activists, journalists and pro-Palestinian accounts, showing the reality of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza born out of Israel’s ongoing offensive and monthslong blockade of aid deliveries.
Yazan died of malnourishment on Monday, Al Jazeera reported. He was 10.
“This child had turned into a skeleton in this war before he died,” Muhammed al-Kafarneh, a relative of Yazan, told Al Jazeera in a video interview on Monday, as Yazan’s body was being cleaned and prepared for burial in the background.
“Hunger ravaged his body. This child was suffering from several diseases,” al-Kafarneh said. “The war came and took away all the basic components that could give him life.”
Yazan’s family was originally living in north Gaza ― which is facing its own starvation crisis ― before Israeli strikes displaced them several times. In a video on Instagram, Yazan’s father, sitting beside his emaciated son, shared a photo, taken a week before Israel began its offensive, of Yazan smiling and not visibly malnourished.
Hoping to find better health care for Yazan, who had cerebral palsy, the family arrived in Rafah. But despite his efforts, Yazan’s father could not locate the food, water or medicine his son needed to survive.
“We found nothing, so he was met with a slow and painful death,” Muhammed al-Kafarneh told Al Jazeera. “The barbaric war and the oppressive actions of the Israeli occupation against the children of Gaza and its civilians must be stopped.”
North Gaza itself is experiencing even less access to aid, with public order falling apart as Palestinians become desperate for food, water and other basic necessities. UNICEF said Sunday that at least 10 children have died due to dehydration and malnutrition in the north’s Kamal Adwan Hospital in recent days.
“These tragic and horrific deaths are man-made, predictable and entirely preventable,” Adele Khodr, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.
Malnutrition screenings conducted in the north by UNICEF and the World Food Program in January found that nearly 16% of children under 2 years of age were acutely malnourished, while similar screenings in Rafah found 5% of children in the same age range experiencing malnutrition.
“The sense of helplessness and despair among parents and doctors in realizing that lifesaving aid, just a few kilometres away, is being kept out of reach, must be as unbearable, but worse still are the anguished cries of those babies slowly perishing under the world’s gaze,” Khodr said. “The lives of thousands more babies and children depend on urgent action being taken now.”
Following an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants, in which some 1,200 people were killed and roughly another 250 were taken hostage, Israel has barred entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies into Gaza, aside from a small amount of aid entering from the south. Some aid groups have said their deliveries are also being delayed due to Israeli forces firing at their trucks.
Janti Soeripto, CEO of aid organization Save the Children, said Monday that “the conditions to provide humanitarian assistance to children in Gaza are not only not being met but are getting worse.”
“We have been calling for more crossings, more opening hours, more capacity to check trucks and pass them through, not have trucks be off and unloaded again four or five times,” Soeripto told NPR. “These are all fairly straightforward ways to make the logistics of this operation much easier, less painful and more effective. And none of these have been taken up so far.”
In addition to the airdrops, U.S. President Joe Biden said he wants to open a maritime corridor for aid “and expand deliveries by land.” A U.S. official told HuffPost’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed on Sunday that aides anticipated incidents like the aid convoy shooting ― now widely being described as the “flour massacre” ― but that they still don’t expect Biden to pressure Israel in a way that actually helps Gazans.
“Pushing Israel to allow food in is totally off the table,” the official said, resulting in Biden’s pursuit of “low-yield PR stunts” like airdrops of aid and the idea of a maritime corridor.
“We direct our message to the international community and the free people of the world: What are you waiting for? At least guarantee the right to life for children,” Muhammed al-Kafarneh told Al Jazeera. “You claim to be just and righteous. What are you waiting for? We have reached famine. Not only that, but a complete catastrophe.”
GRAPHIC PHOTOS WARNING: The following highly distressing images depict death and severe malnourishment.
Yazan al-Kafarneh, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy, receives medical treatment with limited resources at Abu Yusuf al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, Gaza, on Feb. 28. Yazan died of severe malnourishment on March 4.
Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images
Yazan had cerebral palsy due to an insufficient supply of oxygen at the time of his birth. He was receiving treatment at a Rafah hospital that specializes in providing care to children who suffer from malnutrition and a shortage of medication. Mohammed Talatene/picture alliance via Getty Images
[Continuing CIA/Presidential deception/aggression patterns that were formerly known as the "Cold War" (unprovoked, unconfirmed American-sponsored terrorist attacks upon Russia and its allies), the CIA terrorists sowed the seeds of an inevitable Russian invasion of Ukraine. By creating situations and atmosphere, where Russian leaders were to be forced to choose between starting WWIII outright or totally surrendering to CIA demands, the world has been forced into walking a tightrope over the nuclear abyss for at least 5 decades. For the past 50 years, starting with the Afghan invasion, the CIA has trusted Russian leaders to be sane men who would never allow themselves to be manipulated into starting that last great nuclear war, no matter what the White House's private army does to them.
Now that Ukraine has been destroyed and Russia's military depleted, the CIA seems fully prepared, even eager to actually cause the Russian leaders to make that fatal choice of risking the Big One, in order to avoid national extinction. There is no other explanation for our current untenable situation, or the fact that the CIA allowed, even helped the NYT produce this seeming embarrassment for the spy/terrorist agency.
The CIA is obviously proud of what they have wrought in secret in Ukraine and can't wait till its over to brag of their exploits.
Obama/Trump/Biden helped and encouraged the CIA to start this war, which is really against all of Europe, even though Euro Govts. helped Biden to start it in Ukraine, depleting everyone's arsenal in the process.]--Peter Chamberlin
The New York Times has revealed the CIA’s covert support for Ukraine, secretly training and equipping intelligence officers over 8 years and constructing 12 bases along the Russian border.
The symbol of the Central Intelligence Agency pictured over the USA Flag Photo: Depositphotos
The New York Times has revealed the extent of the CIA’s covert support for Ukraine in a deep investigative report. Over the past 8 years, the agency has secretly trained and equipped Ukrainian intelligence officers, constructing a network of 12 bases along the Russian border.
This cooperation has proven tremendously valuable right from the start.
“Before the war, Ukraine provided intercepts proving Russia’s role in the 2014 downing of MH17. They also helped pursue Russians who meddled in the 2016 US election,” the NYT stated.
Around 2016, the CIA began training an elite Ukrainian commando unit that captured Russian drones and gear to crack Moscow’s encryption. A key officer was Kyrylo Budanov, now head of Ukraine’s military intelligence.
The CIA also helped train Ukrainian spies to operate in Russia, Europe, and elsewhere with major Russian presence.
“Now these intelligence networks are increasingly at risk: If Republicans in Congress end military funding to Kyiv, the C.I.A. may have to scale back,” warns the NYT.
CIA Director William Burns made a secret 10th visit to Ukraine in February to reassure Ukrainian leaders.
The CIA-Ukraine partnership traces back to 2014 when Ukraine’s pro-Western government took power after then-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia. Spy chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko proposed a three-way partnership with the CIA and MI6.
A cautious start
But the Obama administration moved slowly to avoid provoking Moscow. White House rules barred lethal aid to Ukraine.
“The result was a delicate balancing act. The C.I.A. was supposed to strengthen Ukraine’s intelligence agencies without provoking the Russians. The red lines were never precisely clear, which created a persistent tension in the partnership,” stated the NYT.
In Kyiv, spy chief Nalyvaichenko picked aide General Kondratiuk to head counterintelligence. They created a paramilitary unit that conducted operations and gathered intelligence the CIA/MI6 wouldn’t provide.
Operation Goldfish
In 2016, the CIA began sending encrypted radios and devices for intercepting communications. The CIA oversaw Operation Goldfish – training to teach Ukrainian officers to assume fake personas and steal Russian secrets.
The Operation Goldfish officers were soon deployed to 12 newly-built, forward operating bases constructed along the Russian border. From each base the Ukrainian officers ran networks of agents who gathered intelligence inside Russia. Graduates trained sleeper agents for guerrilla operations if occupied.
When Ukraine discovered Russia deploying attack helicopters in Crimea, Gen. Kondratiuk sent a team led by Lt. Col. Budanov to plant explosives, without CIA permission. Disguised as Russians, they crossed the gulf but were awaited by Russian commandos. After casualties on both sides, the team retreated.
The fallout cost Kondratiuk his job but Ukraine didn’t back down. One day after Kondratiuk’s removal, a mysterious explosion in Russian-occupied Donetsk ripped through an elevator carrying senior Russian separatist commander Motorola, killing him.
Trump factor
Trump’s 2016 election put Ukraine and the CIA on edge, but his Russia hawks Pompeo and Bolton visited Kyiv to underscore support, expanding training and bases.
The successful partnership led the CIA to want to replicate it with other European agencies countering Russia.
In late 2022, the CIA and MI6 warned Ukraine that Russia was planning a full invasion to decapitate the government and install a Kremlin puppet. At CIA Director Burns’ urging, a small group of officers remained in the hotel in western Ukraine after the US evacuation.
No Endgame
After the invasion, CIA officers at the hotel were the only US presence, passing intel to Ukraine daily. Restrictions on lethal support were lifted.
“The old handcuffs were off, and the Biden White House authorized spy agencies to provide intelligence support for lethal operations against Russian forces on Ukrainian soil,” states the NYT.
When Russia’s Kyiv assault stalled, the CIA returned and sent in more officers.
In July 2022, Ukraine’s spies reported Russian convoys crossing a key bridge. CIA/MI6 quickly verified via satellite, allowing Ukraine to destroy the convoys with rockets.
A CIA official said Director Burns’ recent Kyiv visit signals the US commitment to Ukraine will continue.
Riyad Al-Maliki, minister of Foreign Affairs of the Palestinian National Authority, center, gives a statement outside the Peace Palace after the United Nations' highest court opened historic hearings, in The Hague, Netherlands, February 19, 2024. [AP Photo/Peter Dejong]
The United States government vetoed another United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a “ceasefire” in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza yesterday. This is the third time the Biden administration has exercised its unilateral veto power to shield Israel’s ongoing war of annihilation against the civilian population of Gaza.
The fifteen-member Security Council was established after the Second World War with the power to enforce the UN charter, regulate military action and impose sanctions against member states. It consists of fifteen members, five of which are “permanent” and have the power to unilaterally veto any resolution: China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US.
Since October, nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, 8,000 are missing, and 70,000 have been injured, many catastrophically. These figures are likely underestimates. As many as 1.9 million people, or four out of every five individuals in the entire Gaza strip, have become homeless as Israeli forces systematically lay waste to entire urban areas with massively destructive weapons. The survivors are being forced into smaller and smaller areas, where they are relentlessly massacred and terrorized by Israeli warplanes and snipers as supplies of food and medicine run out.
The deliberate mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza continues in defiance of world public opinion as well as a ceasefire resolution that was passed by a more than three-quarters majority in the UN General Assembly itself in December.
Nor have Israel, the United States, or their NATO allies been deterred by findings in January by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest judicial body under the UN charter, that Israel’s operations in Gaza could “plausibly” fall under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
As a pretext for voting against the latest ceasefire resolution yesterday, the Biden administration put forward a proposed alternative version of the resolution that was so vaguely worded as to be unintelligible. It evidently called for a “temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable” and disapproved of Israel’s plans to storm Rafah, where a million people have sought refuge, “under current circumstances.”
At the same time as the US exercised its veto power on the Security Council, separate legal proceedings were underway in the ICJ that underscored the extent to which Israel has been flouting international law for decades in its drive to illegally occupy and annex Palestinian territory.
Unlike the pending case before the ICJ that attracted global attention last month, accusing Israel of violating the Genocide Convention, the proceedings this week were part of a separate earlier “advisory proceeding” originating from a UN General Assembly resolution passed at the end of December 2022.
This resolution asked the ICJ, seated in The Hague (Netherlands), to address what “legal consequences” should arise “from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures?”
As part of that case, the presentations on behalf of Palestine this week involved a precise exposition of the historical record. These presentations established that fully half the Palestinian people were “massacred or driven off their land in the 1948 Nakba,” after which their land “was partitioned and half of it allocated to a new state that promptly extended it to 78 per cent by brute force. In 1967 … Israel commenced its still-continuing occupation of the entirety of the remaining Palestinian territory.”
This process of incremental ethnic cleansing has continued to the present day, and “nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the number of illegal settlers residing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which has grown from roughly 424,000 in 2004 to some 700,000 settlers today.” These fascistic armed groups of settlers perpetrate violence against Palestinians with impunity, enjoying the protection of the Israeli military and the sanction of the Israeli state.
This conduct is plainly illegal on its face according to the same international legal principles that the United States, for example, invokes against Russia: it constitutes occupation and annexation of territory by unilateral force, in violation of the UN charter as well as the purported principles of self-determination and national sovereignty.
This history of violations of international law by Israel is so well-established that it was essentially taken for granted both in the underlying UN resolution and throughout the ICJ proceedings. In the year 2022, for example, the UN passed more resolutions condemning Israel’s violations of international law than all other countries combined.
Notwithstanding token references by successive US administrations to a purported “two-state solution,” the presentations on behalf of Palestine this week exhaustively established that ambitions to extend Israeli domination over the entirety of the area “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” have never been a secret in Israeli politics.
Israel’s Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs wrote in June of last year, referring to the occupied territories of Jerusalem and the West Bank by biblical designations: “Judea and Samaria were not seized from a sovereign state recognized by international law, and the State of Israel has a right to impose its sovereignty over these areas as they comprise the cradle of history of the Jewish people and are an inseparable part of the Land of Israel.”
In August of last year, in a message broadcast on Israel’s Army Radio, Israel’s Heritage Minister stated: “Sovereignty must be extended within the borders of the West Bank . . . to create international recognition that this place is ours.”
The far-right Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, himself an illegal settler, went so far as to state in March of last year that “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian people.” Previously, he had stated, “We are here to stay. We will make it clear that our national ambition for a Jewish State from the river to the sea is an accomplished fact, a fact not open to discussion or negotiation.”
The historical facts presented at the ICJ are an overwhelming refutation of the efforts to present Israel’s ongoing operations in Gaza as a response to the events of October 7. In reality, the Israeli government did everything in its power to incite the desperate October 7 uprising by means of relentless provocations over a long period, while at the same time standing down its own troops in order to guarantee a pretext for setting in motion longstanding plans to impose Israeli sovereignty over the entirety of Gaza.
The presentations at the ICJ, in particular, expose all of the efforts to brand the Palestinian slogan “from the river to the sea” as antisemitic as a tendentious inversion of reality.
Unlike the proceedings that took place last month, in which the US government remained largely the subject only of tactful references, the Biden administration was directly subjected to humiliating rebuttals at the ICJ this week. “Whatever offences against international law Israel commits, the United States comes forward to shield it from accountability,” declared Paul Reichler, an American lawyer and member of the bar of the US Supreme Court, on behalf of Palestine.
In its written submissions to the ICJ, Reichler said, Israel did not even bother to argue for the legality of its own conduct, instead accusing all of its critics of antisemitic bias. Even the US government could not bring itself to argue for the legality of Israel’s occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory, instead insisting that “it is neither lawful nor unlawful.” In addition to Israel and the US, the only other country to file a brief in support of Israel was Fiji.
Reichler ridiculed the Biden administration’s position, which is tantamount to a denial that there is any such thing as international law at all. “Only in such a lawless—and United Nations Charter-less—world could the Israeli occupation be described,” Reichler said, as “not unlawful.”
Reichler’s scorching rebuttal recalls the famous words of US Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg trials. Referring to the high-level Nazi war criminals seated across the room from him, Jackson declared: “these men are surprised that this is the law; they really are surprised that there is any such thing as law. These defendants did not rely on any law at all. Their program ignored and defied all law…. International law, natural law, German law, any law at all was to these men simply a propaganda device to be invoked when it helped and to be ignored when it would condemn what they wanted to do.”
The same words apply with full force to the perpetrators of genocide in the 21st century, including not just Netanyahu and his entire regime, but their blood-soaked accomplices in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin.
The proceedings at the ICJ over the past two months fully expose the pretensions of the US-led NATO alliance to be upholding a so-called “rules-based international order” as it threatens, bombs, and sanctions its way around the world in pursuit of global hegemony. When that same “rules-based order” is invoked against a US ally that is committing genocide in broad daylight, the NATO-aligned diplomats blink their eyes: “Rules-based order, you say? Never heard of it.”
America’s veto of the ceasefire resolution, together with its defense of Israel’s genocide before the ICJ, will be massively unpopular around the world and in particular within the US itself. According to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, out of 18-29-year-olds in the US, 49 percent answered “yes” that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, compared with 24 percent responding “no.” Among those of all ages who voted for Biden in 2020, 50 percent said “yes,” compared with 20 percent responding “no.”
The US media, which is downplaying if not blacking out entirely the proceedings in the UN, is for its part currently engaged in a coordinated propaganda campaign focused on whipping up antipathy towards the “undemocratic” Russian government. But if there is a government in the world whose total imperviousness to the sentiments of its own population stands out at the moment, it is the regime headed by Biden, not Putin.
No confidence can be placed in the institutions of the UN to bring the war criminals to justice, disarm the perpetrators and compensate the victims. The ICJ proceedings this week are part of a protracted legal process that is “advisory” in nature only, and which may not even reach a decision for several more months.
Tellingly, last Friday, the ICJ rejected a request by South Africa in the Genocide Convention case for more urgent measures to restrain Israeli forces as they prepared to storm Rafah, instead simply restating Israel’s existing obligations under international law—knowing full well that Israel will ignore these admonitions at it has been ignoring similar admonitions for decades.
As Netanyahu himself said last month in a televised address, the onslaught will continue regardless of what decisions the ICJ may ultimately reach. “No one will stop us—not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil and no one else. It is possible and necessary to continue until victory and we will do it.”
“there is also an underlying KH-dominated zone (which the group calls the KH Jazeera Operations Command) that spans the Jurf-Akashat-Qaim area. Western Anbar and Albu Kamal Bases for KH KH has worked hard to develop its presence in Anbar, an area to which it is entirely alien as there is virtually no Shi`a population there. KH has been deploying to western Anbar since 2013, and has used the area to reach Syrian battlefields.189 Though Anbar is theoretically under the command of both a three-star military headquarters (Anbar Operations Command) and the PMF (West Anbar Operations Command or axis), there is also an underlying KH-dominated zone (which the group calls the KH Jazeera Operations Command) that spans the Jurf-Akashat-Qaim area.190 In this area, KH has invested great effort in removing adversaries (for instance, ousting the Anbar Operations Command leader, and both customs posts at the Akashat and Qaim end) and building up covert influence networks.191 KH has developed a large informant and influence network in Anbar that spans the Anbar Operations Command, Anbar Police, National Security Service, provincial and district officials, and the 8th and 14th Iraq army divisions.192
The western Anbar bases of KH and closely allied militias were detailed in an August 2019 study for CTC Sentinel by this author.193 It consists of two sub-sectors: the eastern Al-Qaim border crossing on the Euphrates, facing the Albu Kamal areas in Syria,194 and the western Akashat sub-sector (headquartered in Rutbah).195 The main KH headquarters in Al-Qaim is the base for PMF brigade 45, the praetorian KH fighting force, and was struck by U.S. forces on December 29, 2019, killing the PMF brigade 45 commander, Kadhim Alwan (Abu Ali al-Dibi).196 KH forces (mainly from PMF brigade 46) control Highway 20 (which parallels the Iraq-Syria border between the two sub-sectors,197 and ranches between the highway and the border.198 bt These rural areas, close to the Iraq-Syria oil pipeline corridor (and its coaxial road), are used to move missile or rocket forces to Syria.199 (Of note, an earlier August 25, 2019, airstrike (apparently Israeli) struck moving vehicles that were positioned about halfway between two of the sites hit later by the United States on December 29, 2019, underlining Israel’s intense focus on the chain of bases.200)
Immediately over the border, a few kilometers west of the Husaybah customs point and linked by dedicated tracks, is KH’s Imam Ali base, just outside the Syrian town of Albu Kamal.bu After the Aleppo campaign at the end of 2016, KH-Syrian Front concentrated its military efforts in Syria on the Deir ez-Zor area and the town of Albu Kamal, which was captured from the Islamic State in September 2017.201 On June 18, 2018, Israel struck KH in Albu Kamal for the first time, hitting the original KH headquarters close to the border,202 and then struck the Imam Ali base on September 8, 2019,203 January 5, 2020,204 and March 11, 2020.205 The latter strike hit 15 structures in the broader Albu Kamal area, including warehouses at the Imam Ali base, another KH site in the industrial quarter, two Fatimiyoun sites, and Hezbollah Harakat al-Nujaba base in Albu Kamal town, and two Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada base just southeast of Albu Kamal town.206 According to press reporting based on satellite imagery, the Imam Ali base may have significant underground facilities, including perhaps a tunnel to the Iraqi side of the border.207 In Mayadin, 50 miles north of Albu Kamal, KH is reported to have other warehouses at a site called al-Haydaria.208″
[Peshraw Dizayee, known sponsor of Peshmerga forces, was killed in this Iranian revenge strike. The primary target, Erbil, Kurdistan, received up to 8 missile strikes, targetedHay'at Tahrir al-Sham, the latest incarnation of al-Qaida in Iraq, formerly known asJabhat al-Nusra. The entire al-Nusra movement is still controlled by the CIA's favorite stooge...
the diminutive former school teacher turned terrorist leader with nine lives. Julani, or Golani was surely the target of the strikes, but we will never know for certain if he has survived, once again. The missiles allegedly struck a meeting of the terrorists who were training and preparing Afghani terrorist recruits, to joinIslamic State Khorasan Provinceor ISIS-K.]
TEHRAN - In early Tuesday morning the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired barrages of ballistic missiles at Syrian positions of terrorists who were involved in the recent attacks inside Iran, as well as an Israeli Mossad espionage center in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
The IRGC said the first missile strike targeted gathering places of commanders and main elements of recent terrorist attacks in the Iranian cities of Kerman and Rask.
The strike came after gathering points of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group were identified in the occupied territories of Syria and destroyed with a number of ballistic missiles, the IRGC stated.
Daesh claimed responsibility for two suicide attacks that killed nearly 100 people and wounded 280 at a memorial service for top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in the southeastern city of Kerman on January 3.
Last month, another terrorist attack hit a police station in the border city of Rask in the southeastern province of Sistan-Balouchestan, killing 11 police officers and injuring at least six others.
In a later statement the IRGC announced that another missile strike has been launched at a main espionage center of the Israel's Mossad spy agency in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
It said the strike was a sign of the IRGC’s full intelligence superiority over the Zionist regime's bases and activities in the region, Press TV reported.
The IRGC added that its missile strike on the Iraqi Kurdistan region has totally destroyed the Mossad center there.
The Mossad center was used "to develop espionage operations and plan acts of terrorism" across the region, especially in Iran, the IRGC said in its statement.
The missile strike against the Mossad center, the statement said, was in retaliation for the recent assassinations of the resistance front’s commanders, especially those of the IRGC, by Israel.
General Seyed Razi Mousavi, a member of the IRGC serving as a military adviser in Syria, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in a residential neighborhood in the suburbs of Damascus on December 25.
The IRGC also assured the Iranian nation that it will find "the malicious terrorist groups" that are active against Iran “wherever they are and will punish them for their shameful deeds.”
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