PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

Canada’s “Jekyll-and-Hyde” Masquerade as Nation that Supposedly Supports Pacifism and Progressive Principles

How Canada’s military-industrial complex sucks up to and serves the American one

by Jeremy Kuzmarov / August 1st, 2022

[Source: Justin Trudeau photo – people.com; Dr. Jekyll & Hyde poster – amazon.com; collage courtesy of Steve Brown]

LONG READ

On July 8, the Canadian government led by Justin Trudeau announced that it would send 38 General Dynamics-made armored vehicles to Ukraine as part of $500 million in military aid allotted to Ukraine that had been attached to Canada’s budget in April.

That budget saw a $6 billion increase in military spending from the $26.4 billion total in 2021, which was to be used to boost cyber security and strengthen the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a joint U.S.-Canadian defense organization.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded us that our own peaceful democracy—like all the democracies of the world—depends ultimately on the defense of hard power….The world’s dictators should never mistake our civility for pacifism. We know that freedom does not come for free, and that peace is guaranteed only by our readiness to fight for it.”

Chrystia Freeland [Source: tvo.org]

These comments display the priorities of Canada’s current leadership, which is committed to boosting defense spending by $18 billion over the next five years—when it was already ranked 12th in military spending—and to alliance with the United States against Russia and almost all of its other enemies.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gestures while inspecting NATO troops at Adazi military base in Kadaga, Latvia, in 2018. [Source: cbc.ca]

In June, the Trudeau government pledged to spend more than $30 billion over the next two decades to help detect and track military threats from Russia and China in the Arctic.

Trudeau previously imposed sanctions and called for the overthrow of the socialist government in Venezuela, where Canadian mining corporations are desperate to access mineral resources, and has sent Canadian troops as far afield as Mali in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Canadian troops in Mali. [Source: thedefensepost.com]

[Source: cpcml.ca]

Trudeau has also signed a $15-billion agreement to export light armored vehicles (LAVs) produced by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada in London, Ontario, to Saudi Arabia, which sustains the U.S. Empire by trading its oil in U.S. dollars.

Canada military expenditures—note upward trend. [Source: tradingeconomics.com]

Oh Canada!

Yves Engler’s book, Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2022) punctures the myth of Canada as a pacifist and progressive nation and roots Trudeau’s foreign policies in a larger national history.

A Montreal-based journalist, Engler has written 11 books that are mostly critical of Canadian foreign policy. In this one, he shows that the Canadian military has a long and bloody record going back to its subjugation of Canada’s native population and support for British imperial interventions in sub-Saharan Africa.

After World War II, the Canadian military became more tightly integrated with that of the United States, supplying troops for imperial interventions like in the Korean War, while developing its own military-industrial complex that served as an adjunct of the U.S.

Enforcing the Will of the White Man

William D. Otter [Source: wikipedia.org]

The Canadian Army originated from the British army which conquered North America from the Indians and French with tremendous brutality. Halifax became Britain’s primary naval base in North America after the violent displacement of Mi’kmaq First Nation people who had their heads placed on stakes when they tried to resist.

The father of the Canadian army, William D. Otter, was known for his merciless suppression of Cree and Assiniboine warriors in Saskatchewan.

Otter went on to command Canadian forces in South Africa in the Boer war, which became intimately involved in some of the nastier aspects including search, expel and burn missions.

Canadian infantrymen fighting the Boers in South Africa in 1902. [Source: warmuseum.ca]

William Heneker, a native of Sherbrooke, Quebec, and a Royal Military College (RMC) of Canada trained officer who led expeditions to conquer West Africa for the British, published an influential British training manual which noted how “the great thing is to impress savages with the fact that they are the weaker, and…enforce the will of the white man.”

William C. Heneker [Source: dublin.fusiliers.com]

A Vicious Reputation

Nationalist mythology presents Canada as a uniquely pacifist and benevolent country; however, in World War I, which Canada joined out of its loyalty to the British Empire, Canadian troops developed a terrible reputation for violence against prisoners.

After Canadian troops invaded Russia in 1918 with five other countries including the U.S. in an attempt to quell the Bolshevik Revolution, they were rebuked by locals for the “calm skills with which they used shrapnel as a short-range weapon against [Bolshevik] foot soldiers.”

Canada’s Siberian expeditionary force in Vladivostok in winter 1919. [Source: thecanadianencyclopedia.ca]

When Canadian troops were found guilty of murdering or raping Korean civilians during the Korean War, they were usually released from prison within a year or two at most.

Canadian soldier in Korean War. [Source: silverhawkauthor.com]

Fifty years later in Afghanistan—where Canadian troops fired an astounding 4.7 million bullets and deployed white phosphorus—Captain Ray Wiss praised Canadian troops as “the best at killing people…we are killing a lot more of them [Afghans] than they are of us, and we have been extraordinarily successful recently…we have managed to kill between 10 and 20 Taliban each day.”

Captain Ray Wiss in Afghanistan. [Source: theglobeandmail.com]

A Partner in the North Atlantic Alliance

In 1910, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was established with the aim of reinforcing the British Empire. It was repeatedly deployed in the British Caribbean and in 1932 lent support to a military-coup government in El Salvador that brutally suppressed peasant and Indigenous rebellions.

First recruiting poster for Royal Canadian Navy. [Source: rcinet.ca]

Thirty years later, in 1962, the Canadian Navy participated in the U.S. blockade of Cuba, while assuming responsibility for surveillance of Soviet submarines. When 23,000 U.S. troops invaded the Dominican Republic in April 1965, a Canadian warship was sent to Santo Domingo, in the words of Defense Minister Paul Hellyer, “to stand by in case it is required.”

Paul Hellyer [Source: journal.forces.gc.ca]

Subsequently, the RCN planned and exercised an invasion of Jamaica that was designed to secure the Alcan bauxite facilities from rioters.

In the 1990s, the RCN sent warships to the Middle East to enforce brutal sanctions on Iraq.

RCN vessels also enforced a naval blockade of Libya and kept the Port of Misrata open during the 2011 Operation Odyssey Dawn, a U.S.-NATO operation that resulted in the overthrow and lynching of Libya’s nationalist leader, Muammar Qaddafi.

During the Korean War in the 1950s, RCN destroyers transported Canadian troops and hurled 130,000 rounds at Korean targets, while destroying trains and tunnels on Korea’s coastal railway.

A year before the outbreak of the war, the RCN sent a naval vessel to China as Maoist forces were on the verge of victory in China’s civil war. Part of the objective was to show the U.S. and UK that Canada was a “willing partner in the emerging North Atlantic alliance.”

Royal Canadian Navy in Korean waters, 1952-1954.

 [Source: legionmagazine.com]

Canada and NATO

[Source: foreignpolicyproject.org]

Canada has been a faithful member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since its inception in 1949, currently providing it with about $165 million annually. Canada’s ambassador to the North Atlantic Council, Kerry Buck, boasted in 2018 that “Canada has participated and contributed to every NATO mission, operation and activity since NATO’s founding.”

Many of these missions were highly dubious, including a) NATO’s creation of underground anti-communist armies in Western Europe that carried out black-flag terrorist attacks that were blamed on communists in order to discredit them; b) NATO’s bombing of Kosovo in 1999; c) its 20-year war on Afghanistan; and d) its attack on Libya in which seven Canadian Air Force jets carried out bombing missions.

Canadian fighter pilots and ground crew in Libya during Operation Odyssey Dawn. [Source: rabble.ca]

In the 1990s, Canada strongly supported NATO enalrgement to the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary and has sent troops to Latvia and Ukraine as part of a belligerent policy toward Russia that has provoked a new Cold War and might yet cause a world war.

Canada and the CIA

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Canada’s Defence Research Board (DRB) had a formal relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which paid for classified research that was carried out by Canadian academics.

This research included CIA-funded psychological studies that were framed as a response to Communist Chinese brainwashing during the Korean War.

Canadian, British and U.S. officials met to coordinate this research at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Montreal on June 1, 1951, where the chairman of the DRB, Donald O. Hebb, suggested that the research focus on confessions, menticide and intervention in the individual mind, which was endorsed by other attendees.

Hebb subsequently received a secret $10,000 ($50,000 in today’s money) grant from the DRB to study sensory deprivation—or isolation of human beings—which was used as an interrogation technique.

The U.S. government and CIA subsequently put up half a million dollars ($2 million today) for McGill psychologist Ewen Cameron to build on Hebb’s psychological isolation research in ghastly ways—including forced isolation and administration of electroshocks on individuals and large doses of LSD and other hallucinogens.

The expressed objective of the research, carried out at Montreal’s Allen Memorial Institute from the early 1950s until 1965, was to erase existing memories and re-program individuals’ psyches. Hebb’s and Cameron’s research ultimately influenced the CIA’s 1963 KUBARAK Counterintelligence Interrogation handbook, laying the foundation for the CIA’s two-stage psychological torture methods.

Dr. Ewen Cameron [Source: wikipedia.org]

Dr. Donald O. Hebb [Source: dal.ca]

Base for U.S. Weapons Testing

Canada has assisted the U.S. allowing its landmass and many facilities to be used to test various weapons in the deadly U.S. arsenal, including chemical and biological weapons.

According to John Clearwater, author of the 2006 book Just Dummies: Cruise Missile Testing in Canada, “no matter how bizarre the weapon, no matter how dangerous the test, no matter how contrary the weapon to stated foreign policy objectives, Canada has never refused a single testing request from the United States.”

Starting in World War II, a super-secret germ warfare research facility run jointly by the U.S. and Canada operated at Grosse Îsle, 50 kilometers from Quebec City, which produced rinderpest (a cattle virus) and anthrax spores.

During the Korean War, the Guilford Reed-led Defence Research Board laboratory at Queens studied mosquito vectors and how to produce mosquito colonies, and helped turn shellfish toxins into weapons that were subsequently used by the CIA to try to assassinate foreign leaders like Fidel Castro.

Dr. Guilford Reed in front of Queens University laboratory which helped develop weapons for the CIA that was used to try to assassinate Fidel Castro. [Source: queensu.ca]

Other biological weapons that the U.S. deployed against Cuba were also tested in Canada and, in July 1953, U.S. army planes secretly sprayed 6 kg of zinc cadmium sulfide, a carcinogen, on Winnipeg, and eleven years later did the same on Medicine Hat, Alberta.

When uproar developed in the U.S. over the testing and development of chemical and biological weapons, much of the research was transferred to a secret military research facility north of Suffield, Alberta, where the U.S. Army tested 25-pound shells filled with highly toxic sarin.

[Source: chatnewstoday.ca]

Between 1956 and 1984, more than one billion germs of Agent Orange, Purple and White were sprayed on or near a Canadian military base in Gagetown, New Brunswick.

Canadian scientists generally played a key role in helping to develop defoliants and herbicides sprayed by the U.S. in Vietnam and the British in Malaya. Among them was Otto Maass, Chemical Biological Weapons (CBW) director at Canada’s Defence Research Board and the Chairman of McGill University’s Chemistry Department from 1937 to 1955.^[1]

Otto Maass [Source: wikipedia.org]

[Source: nytimes.com]

Manufacturing Death

During the Vietnam War, Canadian manufacturers sold the U.S. military significant amounts of polystyrene, a major component in napalm—a flammable liquid agent that burns the flesh.

The latter was produced during the Korean War at Canada’s Defence Research Chemical laboratories. Canadian scientists working at the time at Suffield discovered a thickening agent for flamethrower fuels (napalm), and worked on development of a flamethrower to deliver this new and improved fuel from tanks.

Napalm strikes in Trang Bang, Vietnam, in June 1972—made possible by Canadian scientists. [Source: apjjf.org]

More Complicity in War

Overall, Canadian industry sold some $12.5 billion in ammunition, aircraft parts, napalm and other war materials to South Vietnam and the U.S. for use during the Vietnam War.

American planes that dropped bombs and napalm were often guided by Canadian-made Marconi-Doppler navigation systems and used bombing computers built in Rexdale, Ontario.

[Source: ebay.com]

The bombs could have been armed with dynamite shipped from Valleyfield, Quebec. Defoliants came from Naugatuck Chemicals in Elmira, Ontario, and air-to-ground rockets were furnished by the Ingersoll Machine and Tool Company of Ingersoll, Ontario. On the ground, American infantry and artillery units were supplied with de Havilland (DHC-4) Caribous built at Milton, Ontario.

De Havilland Caribou. [Source: basesystems.com]

Canadian products also included Beta boots for the troops and the famous green berets of the Special Forces which came from Dorothea Knitting Mills in Toronto.

1972 Green Beret hat manufactured at Dorothea Knitting Mills in Toronto. [Source: worthpoint.com]

Supporting the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Program

Even though Canada is not officially one of the nine countries possessing nuclear weapons, for years it has supported the U.S.’s nuclear weapons program.

Uranium from Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories and which was refined in Port Hope, Ontario, was used in the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Subsequently, Saskatchewan and Ontario mines supplied a considerable proportion of the uranium used for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

A miner hauls a car of uranium-bearing ore at Eldorado Mine of Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, in 1930. [Source: cbc.ca]

In 1952, Canadian officials permitted the U.S. Strategic Air Command to use Canadian air space for training flights of nuclear-armed aircraft. Since 1965, nuclear-armed U.S. submarines have also fired torpedoes at Canadian army maritime bases and test ranges.

Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1968-1979; 1980-1984) claimed to be suffocating the arms race but allowed the U.S. to test cruise missiles designed for first-strike nuclear attacks at a Canadian army base in Cold Lake—a policy continued by Brian Mulroney (1984-1993).

In September 1950, the U.S. began storing nuclear weapons at Goose Bay, Newfoundland, while in 1963, Lester Pearson’s government (1963-1968) brought Bomarc missiles to Canada and gave Washington effective control over them.

Pearson had taken power after his Tory predecessor John Diefenbaker (1957-1963) had refused to station the Bomarcs in Canada, and was then threatened by Washington and fell from power in turn.

Bomarc missile. [Source: legionmagazine.com]

John Diefenbaker [Source: wikipedia.org]

Our Spying Eyes

Canada received significant U.S. backing in establishing its signals intelligence (SIGNIT) capacities. A National Security Agency (NSA) history of the U.S.-Canada SIGNIT relationship released by Edward Snowden labeled Canada a “highly valued second party partner,” which offers “resources for advanced collection, processing and analysis, and has opened covert sites at the request of NSA, CSE [Communication Security Establishment] shares with NSA their unique geographic access to areas unavailable to the U.S.”

Canada is a member of the Five Eyes surveillance network. [Source: canadiandimension.com]

America First Foreign Policy

Canada has hundreds of military accords with the U.S. The most important, NORAD, has deepened the U.S. military footprint in Canada and committed Canada to acquiring U.S. nuclear weapons for air defense.

In 1965, NORAD’s mandate was expanded to include surveillance and assessment for U.S. commands worldwide, and in the 1980s and 1990s, it assisted in the War on Drugs.

Canadians posted to NORAD have helped research space weaponry while NORAD has also cooperated in missile defense work.

[Source: facebook.com]

Many leading Canadian generals have trained in U.S. Army war colleges as the Canadian armed forces increasingly strives for what it calls “interoperability” with the Americans.

A March 2017 dispatch from the U.S. embassy in Ottawa to the State Department was tellingly titled “Canada Adopts ‘America First’ Foreign Policy.”

Chrystia Freeland earned her appointment as foreign minister, according to a memo uncovered through a Freedom of Information request, in large part because “of her strong U.S. contacts”; her number one priority was “working closely” with Washington.

Chrystia Freeland, center, and Justin Trudeau, right, with Donald Trump. [Source: thegrayzone.com]

The depth of the Canada-U.S. military alliance is such that, if the U.S. attacked Canada as in the War of 1812, it would be extremely difficult for the Canadian Armed Forces to defend Canadian soil.

According to Engler, Canada’s defense sector ignores the threat from the U.S. because it is not oriented toward protecting Canada from aggression; rather Canada’s “defense community” is aligned with the U.S. Empire’s quest for global dominance.

U.S. invades Canada in futuristic sci-fi series We Stand on Guard. Canada has no protection if this scenario comes true. [Source: usatoday.com]

U.S. Pushes for Higher Military Spending

After former Massachusetts governor Paul Cellucci was appointed U.S. ambassador to Canada in 2001, he revealed that his only instruction was to press for increased military spending.

During a 2016 speech to the Canadian parliament, then-U.S. President Barack Obama further called on the Canadian government to increase its military spending while, in 2018, Donald Trump sent Justin Trudeau a letter calling on Canada to improve its military preparedness.

A Rogue State

Canada’s status as a rogue state alongside the U.S. is evident in its non-compliance with a UN treaty outlawing mercenaries and the UN’s prohibition of nuclear weapons, which is supported by two-thirds of UN member states. Since 2007, Canada has also abstained on a series of UN resolutions concerning depleted uranium munitions.

Protesters ask why Canada has not signed onto UN treaty banning nuclear weapons. [Source: thecanadafiles.com]

Canadian companies meanwhile have followed their American counterparts in selling weapons to countries that have carried out significant human rights atrocities including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Israel.

Protesters against Canadian arms sales to Israel. [Source: electronicintifada.net]

Canada has also participated in illegal U.S. coups like in February 2004 when Canadian Special Forces “secured” the airport from which U.S. Marines forced Haiti’s elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—a populist who tried to enact laws to benefit Haiti’s poor—onto a flight to the Central African Republic.

Canadian Special Forces guarding Port-au-Prince airport during Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s kidnapping in February 2004. [Source: reddit.com]

Canada’s Military-Industrial Complex

Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about a military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell address applies all too well in Canada.

Canadian companies produce cutting-edge weapon systems and technologies that the U.S. military requires, construct and manage U.S. overseas military installations,^[2] and even train the operators of Predator and Reaper drones.

The primary arms-industry lobbying group in Canada is the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), which has 20 staff in Ottawa. It has adopted an intense engagement plan that includes hundreds of meetings with members of parliament, key ministers and the Prime Minister’s office.

Protest outside arms trade show in Ottawa in 2019. [Source: worldbeyondwar.org]

Top U.S. arms makers Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE, General Dynamics, L-3 Communications and Raytheon all have Canadian subsidiaries and offices in Ottawa a few blocks from parliament.

[Source: iccpm.com]

[Source: youtube.com]

Exemplifying Canada’s version of the revolving door, Lockheed contracted with retired Air Force Commander André Deschamps—who had helped direct the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan—to lobby for military contracts in 2017, while Irving Shipbuilding hired former Vice Admiral James King to push for Arctic and offshore patrol ship contracts.

André Deschamps [Source: theglobeandmail.com]

Canada’s economy is dependent on shipbuilding, aerospace, high-tech and mining industries, which all benefit from higher military budgets and tighter integration with the U.S.

Many U.S. arms companies have established Canadian subsidiaries in order to access generous government subsidies at a time when the Canadian government is cutting back on social programs and about one-seventh of Canada’s population lives in poverty.

What Should Be Done?

The only solution at this time is for American and Canadian peace activists to link up to challenge the military-industrial complex in both countries.

Detailed plans are needed to convert the U.S. and Canadian economies away from militarism and retrain workers and engineers who currently work in the defense sectors.

Restrictions on lobbying and foreign military sales should also be an urgent policy demand along with abolishing NORAD and NATO.

Peace mural in Nova Scotia. [Source: vowpeace.org]

Additionally, the peace movement should work to try to end the glorification of all things military and boycott Hollywood films, government propaganda initiatives and educational institutions that do so, and which dehumanize racial minorities and enemy countries like Russia and their leaders.

Yves Engler writes at the end of his book that “a peaceful world is possible if we want and work for it.” This is indeed true but it will require nothing less than a social revolution to achieve.

First published at CovertAction Magazine.

Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is author of four books on U.S. foreign policy including most recently Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce, with John Marciano (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018). Read other articles by Jeremy.

If Canada were a Christian state
What would Canada be like if it were a Christian state in the same sense that Israel is a Jewish state?

OPINION
BY ELIZABETH BLOCK

AUGUST 2, 2022 

THE CHRISTIAN FLAG

Someone once told me that Canada is a Christian state, because the major Christian holidays are legal holidays. I said that if Israel were a Jewish state in that sense, I’d have no problem with it. What would Canada be like if it were a Christian state in the same sense that Israel is a Jewish state? (I am ignoring the Green Line. Israel doesn’t put it on maps, so why should I?)

Well, for one thing, I would be very limited in where I could live, because almost all the land would be reserved for the use of Christians only. If I owned my own home and land, and had the documents to prove it, I might have to go to court over and over again to maintain my right to keep it. If a Christian wanted to buy my house, but I didn’t want to sell, armed Christians might just barge in, take it over, and force me out on the street. The government won’t stop them; in fact, it encourages them. It will send in soldiers to protect them.

Let’s say I have children, now grown up and wanting to get married. Could I build an extension on my house for them? Build another house on land I own? Not a chance. I’d never get a building permit. Christians get building permits with ease. Not me. If I built without a permit, my home could be demolished. Even worse, I could be ordered to demolish it myself. At any time the military could declare my land to be a closed military zone and kick me out. After three years it will become property of the state, at which point it will be handed over to Christians to build a subdivision. The army wants to take over my house and use it for a military post? No problem. Not for them, anyway. How about water? My house is not connected to the city water supply. Dig a well? Not allowed. I have a water tank on the roof. I have to buy water to fill it. And I’m lucky if someone hasn’t shot it full of holes.
Advertisement




If I had a garden, to grow vegetables for my family and perhaps to sell at a farmers market, I would not be allowed to grow anything that might compete with Christian farmers. The government might describe eggplants as a threat to national security.

I live in Toronto, but I want to go to university in another city. Or I am offered a job that requires me to travel. I have to get permission from the government, which is extremely unlikely to grant it. If I do travel, I will probably be strip-searched at the airport, a search which includes body cavities. This includes children and babies. Christians can travel with no problem.

I’ve met someone from another city. We want to get married and live in Toronto. I have to apply for status for him. This can take years, even decades, if it ever happens. I must also apply for status for my children. Unless and until they get it, they are not entitled to any government services, including health care and school.

Jews who don’t live or work in Toronto, but would like to go there from time to time, to shop or go to a concert or a show, can’t do it–not without a special permit anyway, which they are extremely unlikely to get.

Christians get the full range of government services: water at full volume 24/7, garbage pickup, mail delivery, street repair. Jews don’t, even though we pay the same taxes. And the Christians sneer at us for living in squalor.

There would be many jobs I wouldn’t be allowed to do. (This was true in Canada in the past, though not legally enforced. I delivered Meals on Wheels for many years, and one client was an elderly Jewish man who told me that in the 1920s, with a BA in chemistry–not common at the time!–he applied for a job that required him to state his religion. He was told sorry, they couldn’t hire him. He went to work in the garment industry, which was heavily Jewish.)

Christians are all drafted into the armed forces. Jews aren’t, and they aren’t allowed to join voluntarily. This is a serious matter, because there are jobs, government services, and even bank loans that you won’t get unless you are a veteran.

Schools are segregated by religion. Christian schools get several times the amount of funding as Jewish (or any other) schools. In fact, there are thousands of Jewish children who can’t go to school – there’s no room for them. The government controls the curriculum, and the police vet the teachers, principals, even the janitors for their political views. They recruit children to report on their teachers. In some places schoolchildren, even kindergarteners, have to go through checkpoints on their way to and from school. In others they are regularly attacked by Christians on the way to school. The army is supposed to protect them. Sometimes soldiers show up, sometimes they don’t.

Just about anywhere I go, even in Jewish areas, I have to go through checkpoints. I might be let through or I might not. I might be held there for hours. I might be treated with contempt–in fact, I probably will be–or even beaten up. Christians sail through. I can’t drive on the Queen Elizabeth Way or the 401, or any of the 400 highways–the major, fast, limited-access highways–or their equivalents in other provinces. Christians have one color license plate, non-Christians have another, so the cops can tell. I can’t even ride on them as a passenger. This is also true of certain city streets. This means, of course, that what should be a short journey turns into a long, roundabout, expensive one. It sheds a certain light on Canada’s boast about being “green.”

If I don’t keep my mouth shut, I could be arrested and imprisoned indefinitely, without being charged, let alone tried (or convicted). In fact, I could lose my citizenship for a “breach of loyalty.” Offences include saying or writing, even as a Facebook post, anything the government deems disloyal. Jews have been imprisoned for writing poems. They also include participating in unarmed protests, which are regularly met with violence, sometimes lethal violence, from the army and the police.

Come to that, they could shoot me, for any reason or none, with no consequences to them. Neither are there any consequences for the Christians who regularly invade Jewish neighborhoods looking for people to beat up. Especially on major Christian holidays.

Jews, including children, can be tortured in prison. The Supreme Court has outlawed torture, except in “cases of necessity,” and has left it to the government–in practice, to the military–to decide when it is necessary.

I once found myself in the involuntary audience of a man on a street corner who was inveighing against immigrants. Also among the listeners was an indigenous man who just chuckled and said, “except for me, you’re all immigrants.”

Jews in a Christian Canada would be regarded as permanent immigrants (or perhaps “infiltrators,” as Israel called Palestinians expelled in 1948 when they tried to return to their homes), and subject to expulsion, deportation, or worse. In this Christian state, Jews like me live on sufferance, which can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason or none. To borrow the words of the Dred Scott decision, as a Jew I have no rights that any Christian is bound to respect.

West Bank dispatch: 24 hours of Operation Breaking Dawn

Palestinian resistance factions in the West Bank are warning of reprisals following Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip as popular protests spread across the occupied territory and Palestinian communities inside Israel.

BY MARIAM BARGHOUTI 

AUGUST 6, 2022 

PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS CLASH WITH ISRAELI TROOPS FOLLOWING A PROTEST IN A SOLIDARITY WITH THE GAZA STRIP, NEAR THE BEIT EL SETTLEMENT NEAR THE WEST BANK CITY OF RAMALLAH, ON AUGUST 6, 2022. PHOTO BY WAFA

Protests and calls for resistance have spread across the West Bank in the first 24 hours since Israel instigated the latest round of violence with the besieged Gaza Strip.

“Operation Breaking Dawn,” the latest round of Israeli military strikes on Gaza was intended to target a senior Palestinian Commanding Officer of the Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Tayseer Ja’abari, according to an Israeli military statement.

The Israeli military attack has so far resulted in the killing of more than 15 Palestinians in Gaza, including a five-year-old child. More than 140 others, mostly civilians, were also reported to have been injured in the military aggression on the besieged territory. Since 2008, Israel has killed more than 5,246 Palestinians in Gaza alone, most of whom are civilians, including children and minors.

In response, Palestinians in Gaza have fired more than 450 rockets. Two Israeli soldiers were reported to have suffered injuries from shrapnel, while two civilians received treatment for minor injuries sustained as they ran for cover at their bomb shelter.

In the West Bank, Palestinian resistance factions are warning of reprisals as popular protests have begun across the occupied territory and within Palestinian communities inside Israel.
Response from Palestinian armed factions in Jenin

On Saturday night, Saraya Al-Quds, the the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, released a statement on behalf of Palestinian armed resistance factions in Jenin Refugee Camp saying the armed brigades (Al-Aqsa, Abu Ali Mustafa, and Al-Qassam) vowed a collective response against Israeli “foolishness” in assaulting Gaza.

“We warn the occupation from committing additional foolishness, and inform that settler roads will be under resistance fire,” the armed resistance group said from the camp. “From this moment, settlers are not permitted to travel through the streets of the West Bank.”

SCREENSHOT FROM VIDEO OF PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE FORCES ISSUING A JOINT STATEMENT IN JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, AUGUST 6, 2022

Jenin refugee camp is also where Israeli military forces shot and killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May as she covered developments in the camp. Between January and April of this year, Israeli forces killed 15 Palestinians in the camp. On August 3, Israeli forces continued its armed raids on Jenin refugee camp, killing 17-year-old Dirar al-Kafrayni

.

ISRAELI FORCES FIRE ON A PROTEST IN A SOLIDARITY WITH THE GAZA STRIP, NEAR THE BEIT EL SETTLEMENT NEAR THE WEST BANK CITY OF RAMALLAH, ON AUGUST 6, 2022. PHOTO BY WAFA

West Bank protests and raids

In light of the intensification of Israeli assaults on Palestinians across Palestine, and in protest of the crimes happening against the Palestinian population besieged in Gaza, Palestinians in Ramallah had went out to the streets chanting “Gaza, we are with you.”



During the early hours of Saturday, Israeli military forces raided areas in the West Bank, namely Jenin, Hebron, Tubas, and Ramallah (Beit Sira and Qalandia refugee camp). In the process, 22 Palestinian men were arrested, including Palestinian journalist Ibrahim Abu Saffiyeh, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society. Most of the detainees were former political prisoners held by Israel, including Rami Al-Kassar, who had previously spent 15 consecutive years in Israeli political detention.

Protests have also been called on by Palestinians with Israeli citizenship in the cities of Haifa, Umm El-Fahem, and Tel-Aviv. However, the number of protesters was low. This may be due to the brutality witnessed by Israeli forces and settlers during last year’s Unity Intifada, where Palestinians were chased by settlers and Israeli security forces in civilian clothing chanting “Death to Arabs.”

PROTESTERS IN JAFFA (PHOTO: HAIDI MOTOLA/ACTIVESTILLS)

At approximately 6:00 PM, today, Palestinians in Ramallah went out to protest against the assault and in solidarity with Palestinian political detainees held in Israeli prisons. In a similar fashion, dozens of Palestinians and anti-apartheid Israeli activists protested by Jaffa’s old Clock Square chanting, “we were not born to be humiliated, we are born to live free.”

Palestinians on the ground in different cities seem to be sharing a similar sentiment. The emphasis is that escalations of Israel’s military use of force against Palestinians in Gaza should not be separated from the intensification of attacks by settlers and the Israeli military in the continued dispossession and displacement of Palestinians in West Bank as well as those with Israeli citizenship.

PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS CLASH WITH ISRAELI TROOPS FOLLOWING A PROTEST IN A SOLIDARITY WITH THE GAZA STRIP, NEAR THE BEIT EL SETTLEMENT NEAR THE WEST BANK CITY OF RAMALLAH, ON AUGUST 6, 2022. PHOTO BY WAFA

Palestinian Authority response

In the hours following the extra-judicial assassination of Ja’abari, on August 5 the Palestinian presidential office released a statement condemning the Israeli aggression on Gaza and demanding its immediate suspension. The statement also blamed the Israeli occupation for any potential dangerous escalations.

The presidential statement further called on the international community to ensure that Israel stops the aggression on Palestinians generally, and in Gaza specifically, providing them with international protection.

The Palestinian PM, Mohammad Shtayyeh, also released a statement which he honored the Palestinians killed and pointed shamefully towards the Israeli occupation that persists in targeting Palestinians in Gaza. The Palestinian president and PM have not yet made any public appearances.

In addition to this, Ahmad Tamimi, member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee condemned the assault and called on “national and Islamic Palestinian factions to unify in light of the demands of this moment, that is to block this assault.” His statement noted, “the basis of this mobilization should be national unity and placing all energies to achieve it.”

Mariam Barghouti is the Senior Palestine Correspondent for Mondoweiss.

Why Resistance Matters: Palestinians are Challenging Israel’s Unilateralism, Dominance

by Ramzy Baroud / August 3rd, 2022

Until recently, Israeli politics did not matter to Palestinians. Though the Palestinian people maintained their political agency under the most demoralizing conditions, their collective action rarely influenced outcomes in Israel, partly due to the massive discrepancy of power between the two sides.

Now that Israelis are embarking on their fifth election in less than four years, it is important to raise the question: “How do Palestine and the Palestinians factor in Israeli politics?”

Israeli politicians and media, even those who are decrying the failure of the ‘peace process’, agree that peace with the Palestinians is no longer a factor, and that Israeli politics almost entirely revolves around Israel’s own socio-economic, political and strategic priorities.

This, however, is not exactly true.

While it is appropriate to argue that none of Israel’s mainstream politicians are engaged in dialogue about Palestinian rights, a just peace or co-existence, Palestine remains a major factor in the election campaigning of most of Israel’s political parties. Instead of advocating peace, these camps advocate sinister ideas, ranging from the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements to the rebuilding of the ‘Third Temple’ – thus the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The former is represented by ex Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett, and the latter in more extremist characters like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Hence, Palestine has always factored in Israeli politics in such a vulgar way. Even before the establishment of the state of Israel on the ruins of historic Palestine in 1948, the Zionist movement understood that a ‘Jewish state’ can only exist and maintain its Jewish majority through force, and only when Palestine and the Palestinian people cease to exist.

“Zionism is a colonizing adventure and, therefore, it stands or falls on the question of armed forces”, Zionist ideologue Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote nearly 100 years ago. This philosophy of violence continues to permeate Zionist thought to this day. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands,”said Israeli historian, Benny Morris in a 2004 interview, in reference to the Nakba and the subsequent dispossession of the Palestinian people.

Until the war of 1967, Palestinian and Arab states mattered, to some extent, to Israel. Palestinian and Arab resistance cemented Palestinian political agency for decades. However, the devastating outcome of the war, which, once again, demonstrated the centrality of violence to Israel’s existence, relegated Palestinians and almost entirely sidelined the Arabs.

Since then, Palestinians mattered to Israel based almost exclusively on Israeli priorities. For example, Israeli leaders flexed their muscles before their triumphant constituencies by attacking Palestinian training camps in Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere. Palestinians also factored in as Israel’s new cheap labor force. In some ironic but also tragic way, it was the Palestinians who built Israel following the humiliating defeat of the Naksa, or the Setback.

The early stages of the ‘peace process’, especially during the Madrid talks in 1991, gave the false impression that the Palestinian agency is finally translating to tangible outcomes; this hope quickly evaporated as illegal Jewish settlements continued to expand, and Palestinians continued to lose their land and lives at an unprecedented rate.

The ultimate example of Israel’s complete disregard for Palestinians was the so-called ‘disengagement plan’ carried out in Gaza by late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005. The Israeli government believed that Palestinians were inconsequential to the point that the Palestinian leadership was excluded from any phase of the Israeli scheme. The approximately 8,500 illegal Jewish settlers of Gaza were merely resettled in other illegally occupied Palestinian land and the Israeli army simply redeployed from Gaza’s heavily populated areas to impose a hermetic blockade on the impoverished Strip.

The Gaza siege apparatus remains in effect to this day. The same applies to every Israeli action in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

Due to their understanding of Zionism and experience with Israeli behavior, generation after generation of Palestinians rightly believed that the outcome of Israeli politics can never be favorable to Palestinian rights and political aspirations. The last few years, however, began altering this belief. Though Israeli politics have not changed – in fact, pivoted further to the right – Palestinians, wittingly or otherwise, became direct players in Israeli politics.

Israeli politics has historically been predicated on the need for further colonialism, strengthening the Jewish identity of the state at the expense of Palestinians, and constant quest for war. Recent events suggest that these factors are no longer controlled by Israel alone.

The popular resistance in occupied East Jerusalem and the growing rapport between it and various other forms of resistance throughout Palestine are reversing Israel’s previous success in segmenting Palestinian communities, thus dividing the Palestinian struggle among different factions, regions and priorities. The fact that Israel is forced to seriously consider Gaza’s response to its annual provocation in Jerusalem, known as the ‘Flag March’, perfectly illustrates this.

As demonstrated time and again, the growing resistance throughout Palestine is also denying Israeli politicians the chance to wage war for votes and political status within Israel. For example, Netanyahu’s desperate war in May 2021 did not save his government, which collapsed shortly after. Bennett, a year later, hoped that his ‘Flag March’ would provoke a Palestinian response in Gaza that would buy his crumbling coalition more time. The strategic decision by Palestinian groups not to respond to Israel’s provocations thwarted Bennett’s plans. His government, too, collapsed shortly after.

Still, a week following the dismantling of Israel’s latest coalition, groups in Gaza released a video of a captured Israeli who was presumed dead, sending a message to Israel that the resistance in the Strip still has more cards at its disposal. The video raised much attention in Israel, compelling the new Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid to assert that Israel has “a sacred obligation to bring home” its captives.

All these new elements have a direct impact on Israeli politics, policies and calculations, even if the Israelis continue to deny the obvious impact of Palestinians, their resistance and political strategies.

The reason why Israel refuses to acknowledge Palestinian political agency is that, in doing so, Tel Aviv would have no other alternative but to engage Palestinians as partners in a political process that could guarantee justice, equality and peaceful co-existence. Until this just peace is realized, Palestinians will continue to resist. The sooner Israel acknowledges this inescapable reality, the better.

FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press). Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs, Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). Read other articles by Ramzy, or visit Ramzy's website.

ZIONIST ETHNIC CLEANSING

Israel bombs Gaza Strip for second day in ‘pre-emptive operation’

Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem and Hazem Balousha in Gaza City
Sat, 6 August 2022 


Residents of the Gaza Strip were bracing for the possibility of a new round of war on Saturday after two days of “pre-emptive” Israeli airstrikes against a Palestinian militant group.

Israeli warplanes hit several sites in the blockaded territory on Friday, part of a surprise operation named “Breaking Dawn” that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said thwarted alleged planned rocket attacks by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

After retaliatory fire from the militants, Israel warned on Saturday that its bombing campaign could last a week, in the worst escalation of violence since last May’s 11-day conflict.


As exchanges of fire continued and Israel appeared to broaden the operation on Saturday, health authorities in the Palestinian coastal enclave said 15 people had been killed by Israeli bombing, including the Islamic Jihad commander for north Gaza, Tayseer Jabari, and civilians including a five-year-old girl and 22-year-old art student. More than 80 more people were injured.

While it sometimes acts independently, the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad is aligned with Hamas, the larger Islamist movement that rules the strip, and both are considered terrorist organisations by most of the international community.

Whether the latest confrontation between Israel and Islamic Jihad will escalate into full-out war largely depends on whether Hamas – still licking its wounds from last year’s war – decides to intervene.

The group has announced its support for Islamic Jihad, and said it would also respond to the strikes. “The resistance, with all its arms and military factions, is united in this campaign and will have the last word,” Hamas officials said in a statement.

Islamic Jihad called the initial Israeli bombardment a “declaration of war”, firing a barrage of at least 100 rockets into southern Israel on Friday night.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage, with many rockets intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defence system, but 13 people were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Air raid sirens continued to blare in Tel Aviv and towns and cities across Israel’s south on Saturday.

The hostilities have left Gaza’s inhabitants fearful of what could be the fifth full-scale conflict in the strip since Hamas seized control in 2007. Israel and Egypt closed the enclave’s frontiers shortly after, leaving the area’s 2 million residents grappling with unemployment, crumbling medical infrastructure and little electricity and clean water for the last 15 years.

On Saturday, dozens of people lined up in front of bakeries and grocery stores, while the local energy authority, unable to supply the sole power station with fuel, shut down operations at midday.

Hamed al-Hindi, 33, waited to buy bread for his family and elderly parents for more than an hour in downtown Gaza City. “I don’t know how long this escalation will take and how bad it will be,” he said.

“We couldn’t sleep last night, the sounds of explosions didn’t stop. I brought my three children to my room to keep them calm.”

Lamia al-Bakri, who was leaving a supermarket carrying several plastic bags, said: “Everything happened suddenly and without warning.

“My 10-year-old daughter kept asking me, ‘Could we go to Egypt and live there, I don’t want war, I’m afraid. I don’t want any of us get hurt.’

“I don’t know why these kids must suffer for years,” the 41-year-old said.

The heaviest strikes yet hit four residential buildings the IDF said were linked to Islamic Jihad activity on Saturday afternoon. In each case, the Israeli military warned residents beforehand, and no casualties were reported.

Another strike on Saturday hit a car, killing a 75-year-old woman and wounding six others. Other strikes largely hit rural areas, targeting what Israel said were rocket launcher sites and training camps.

Egypt, which often mediates between Israel and armed groups in Gaza, said it had been informed by Israel that Breaking Dawn would be a small-scale assault, but efforts at coordinating a ceasefire have yielded no progress so far.

This weekend’s violence comes after days of tension sparked by the arrest of Bassem al-Saadi, Islamic Jihad’s top commander in the occupied West Bank. The IDF has conducted near-nightly raids across the West Bank since mid-March, in response to a wave of Palestinian terror attacks on Israeli citizens.

While Islamic Jihad did not launch rockets after Saadi’s arrest, Israel has insisted through the week that the group is seeking revenge, and that two units armed with anti-tank missiles posed an imminent threat.

Israel has closed the Erez crossing, used by Palestinians in Gaza to enter Israel, since Tuesday and shut down roads and restricted movement of civilians in Israel’s south as a precaution.

Israeli tanks and armour were lined up along the frontier on Friday, after the military said it was reinforcing its troops, and its defence minister, Benny Gantz, has approved an order to call up 25,000 reservists if needed.

“Israel isn’t interested in a wider conflict in Gaza, but will not shy away from one either,” the Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, said in a televised address on Friday. “Israel will not sit idly by when there are those who are trying to harm its civilians.”

The Gaza Strip has remained relatively quiet since the war in May last year, which killed 256 people in Gaza and 14 people in Israel.

Israel elected a coalition government a month later that for the first time included members of an independent Arab-Israeli party, opposed to escalation with Palestinians. It also increased the number of work permits for Palestinians in Gaza to enter Israel in an attempt to alleviate the strip’s crushing poverty.

The short-lived coalition collapsed in June. Centrist Lapid, the caretaker prime minister, is preparing for elections on 1 November in which he faces pressure from Israel’s right wing to appear tough on terrorism.

PLO condemns Israeli aggression on Gaza, calls for international protection for the Palestinian people

Damage to a building in Gaza City caused by Israeli air strikes. (WAFA Images)

RAMALLAH, Saturday, August 6, 2022 (WAFA) – The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) today condemned the ongoing Israeli aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip and called for international protection for the Palestinian people.

“We strongly condemn the brutal aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip by the occupation forces, which targets civilians, children and its infrastructure,” said Hussein al-Sheikh, Secretary General of the PLO’s Executive Committee.

“We call on the international community to intervene and provide protection for our people,” he added.

Eleven people have been killed in two days of Israeli attacks on Gaza and dozens more injured, in addition to heavy destruction of property.

M.K.

Israel detains more than 20 Palestinians in raids across the occupied West Bank, most are former prisoners

Israeli occupation forces detaining Palestinians in the occupied territories.

RAMALLAH, Saturday, August 6, 2022 (WAFA) – The Israeli occupation army this morning and last night detained at least 21 Palestinians in raids across the occupied West Bank, most of them former prisoners and include a journalist, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS).

It said that the army detained six people from the village of Beit Sira, west of Ramallah, including the journalist Ibrahim Abu Safieh.

Four others were detained in the Hebron governorate, in addition to arrests made in Jenin, Tubas, Tulkarm in the north of the West Bank, and Qalandia refugee camp near Jerusalem, said the PPS.

M.K.

Palestinian killed in the second day of Israeli aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip

Explosions caused from an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip. (WAFA Images)

06/August/2022 

KHAN YUNIS, Saturday, August 6, 2022 (WAFA) – A Palestinian man was killed this morning in the second day of the Israeli aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip, the 11th victim in the Israeli attacks.

WAFA correspondent said an Israeli drone fired a missile at a farm in Bani Suhaila town, east of Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip, killing one person and injuring several others.

Israeli warplanes continued today their attacks in the north, center and south of the Gaza Strip causing damage to homes and property.

Ten people were killed when Israel yesterday launched several unprovoked attacks on the Gaza Strip, including a 5-year-old baby and a 23-year-old woman, while dozens were injured, some of them said to be critical.

In retaliation, dozens of projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip at locations in southern Israel, causing panic but no injuries.

M.K.

Israel-Gaza fighting spills into second day with air strikes, rockets
By Nidal Al-Mughrabi




1/5
A woman looks on as she stands next to a damaged building where senior commander of Islamic Jihad militant group Tayseer al-Jaabari was killed in Israeli strikes, in Gaza City August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

GAZA, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft struck in Gaza and Palestinian militants fired rockets at Israeli cities on Saturday as fighting ran into a second day, ending more than a year of relative calm along the border.

Israel on Friday said it had launched a special operation against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, killing one of its senior commanders in a surprise daytime air-strike on a high-rise building in Gaza City. read more

The Israeli strikes killed nine more Palestinians, including at least four Islamic Jihad militants and a child, and wounding 79 people, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said it had apprehended 19 Islamic Jihad militants in overnight arrest raids.

Palestinian militants fired at least 160 rockets over the border, the military said, some deep into Israel toward the commercial hub Tel Aviv. Most of the missiles were intercepted and a few people were lightly injured when running to shelters.

Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar had begun mediating an end to the violence, according to a Palestinian official with knowledge of the efforts, "but no breakthrough yet", the official said.

A Western-backed Palestinian Authority official condemned Israel's attacks.

"We call on the international community to intervene and provide protection for our people," Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh said on Twitter.

Further escalation would largely depend on Hamas, the Islamic militant group which controls Gaza, and whether it would opt to join the fighting.

Tensions rose this week after Israeli forces arrested an Islamic Jihad commander in the West Bank, drawing threats of retaliation from the group.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Friday's strikes thwarted an immediate and concrete attack by Islamic Jihad.

The frontier had been largely quiet since May 2021, when 11 days of fierce fighting between Israel and militants left at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel dead.

Israel and Gaza militants exchange fire after deadly strikes

Smoke rises following Israeli airstrikes on a building in Gaza City, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. Palestinian officials say Israeli airstrikes on Gaza have killed several people, including a senior militant, and wounded 40 others. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

August 5, 2022 
By Fares Akram and Tia Goldenberg | Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli jets pounded militant targets in Gaza early Saturday as rockets rained on southern Israel, hours after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on the coastal enclave killed at least 11 people, including a senior militant and a 5-year-old girl.

The fighting that began Friday with Israel’s dramatic targeted killing of a senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad continued throughout the night, drawing the sides closer to an all-out war.

But the territory’s Hamas rulers appeared to stay on the sidelines of the conflict, keeping its intensity somewhat contained, for now. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller battles over the last 15 years at a staggering cost to the territory’s 2 million Palestinian residents.

The latest round of Israel-Gaza violence was sparked by the arrest this week of a senior Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank, part of a monthlong Israeli military operation in the territory. Citing a security threat, Israel then sealed roads around the Gaza Strip and on Friday killed the militant leader in a targeted strike.

A blast was heard in Gaza City, where smoke poured from the seventh floor of a tall building. Video released by Israel’s military showed the strikes blowing up three guard towers with suspected militants in them.

In a nationally televised speech Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said his country launched the attacks based on “concrete threats.”

“This government has a zero-tolerance policy for any attempted attacks — of any kind — from Gaza towards Israeli territory,” Lapid said. “Israel will not sit idly by when there are those who are trying to harm its civilians.”

“Israel isn’t interested in a broader conflict in Gaza but will not shy away from one either,” he added.

The violence poses an early test for Lapid, who assumed the role of caretaker prime minister ahead of elections in November when he hopes to keep the position.

Lapid, a centrist former TV host and author, has experience in diplomacy having served as foreign minister in the outgoing government but has thin security credentials. A conflict with Gaza could burnish his standing and give him a boost as he faces off against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a security hawk who led the country during three of its four wars with Hamas.

Hamas also faces a dilemma in deciding whether to join a new battle barely a year after the last war caused widespread devastation. There has been almost no reconstruction since then, and the isolated coastal territory is mired in poverty, with unemployment hovering around 50%.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 5-year-old girl and a 23-year-old woman were among those killed in Gaza, without differentiating between civilian and militant casualties. The Israeli military said early estimates were that around 15 fighters were killed. Dozens were wounded.

Islamic Jihad said Taiseer al-Jabari, its commander for northern Gaza, was among the dead. He had succeeded another militant killed in an airstrike in 2019. That set off a heavy round of fighting between Israel and the militant group.

An Israeli military spokesman said the strikes were in response to an “imminent threat” from two militant squads armed with anti-tank missiles. The spokesman, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said al-Jabari was deliberately targeted and had been responsible for “multiple attacks” on Israel.

Hundreds marched in a funeral procession for him and others who were killed, with many mourners waving Palestinian and Islamic Jihad flags and calling for revenge.

Israeli media showed the skies above southern and central Israel lighting up with rockets and interceptors from Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system. It wasn’t immediately clear how many rockets were launched, and there were no immediate reports of casualties on the Israeli side.

Overnight, Israel struck rocket launchers, rocket building sites and Islamic Jihad positions. It also arrested 19 Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank, the military said.

The U.N. special envoy to the region, Tor Wennesland, said: “The launching of rockets must cease immediately, and I call on all sides to avoid further escalation.”

Following the initial Israeli strikes, a few hundred people gathered outside the morgue at Gaza City’s main Shifa hospital. Some went in to identify loved ones and emerged later in tears.

“May God take revenge against spies,” shouted one, referring to Palestinian informants who cooperate with Israel.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz approved an order to call up 25,000 reserve soldiers if needed while the military announced a “special situation” on the home front, with schools closed and limits placed on activities in communities within 80 kilometers (50 miles) of the border.

Israel closed roads around Gaza earlier this week and sent reinforcements to the border as it braced for a revenge attack after Monday’s arrest of Bassam al-Saadi, an Islamic Jihad leader, in a military raid in the occupied West Bank. A teenage member of the group was killed in a gun battle between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants.

Hamas seized power in the coastal strip from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Its most recent war with Israel was in May 2021. Tensions soared again earlier this year following a wave of attacks inside Israel, near-daily military operations in the West Bank and tensions at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site. Israel withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah, speaking to the Al-Mayadeen TV network from Iran, said “fighters of the Palestinian resistance have to stand together to confront this aggression.” He said there would be “no red lines” and blamed the violence on Israel.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said “the Israeli enemy, which started the escalation against Gaza and committed a new crime, must pay the price and bear full responsibility for it.”

Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad is smaller than Hamas but largely shares its ideology. Both groups oppose Israel’s existence and have carried out scores of deadly attacks over the years, including the firing of rockets into Israel. It’s unclear how much control Hamas has over Islamic Jihad, and Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks emanating from Gaza.

Israel and Egypt have maintained a tight blockade over the territory since the Hamas takeover. Israel says the closure is needed to prevent Hamas from building up its military capabilities. Critics say the policy amounts to collective punishment.

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

Reactions to Israeli regime's Gaza attack

TEHRAN, Aug. 06 (MNA) – The Zionist regime's army launched brutal attacks on the Gaza Strip on Friday evening, killing a number of Palestinians, including a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad movement, and a five-year-old child.

On Friday, the Israeli regime launched missiles throughout the Gaza Strip, killing 10 people, including a five-year-old girl, a 23-year-old woman, as well as Taysir al-Jabari, a commander of Islamic Jihad’s military wing.  

The Islamic Jihad has fired more than 100 rockets toward the occupied territories after the Israeli regime assassinated one of the Palestinian resistance movement’s senior commanders during a massacre.

The movement called the retaliatory barrage only an “initial response” to the Israeli bloodbath that killed a number of Palestinians in the city of Rafah which is located in the southern part of the Tel Aviv-blockaded Gaza Strip.

"As an initial response to the killing of senior commander Taysir al-Jabari and his brethren martyrs... the al-Quds Brigade covered Tel Aviv, central cities, and areas surrounding Gaza with more than 100 rockets," the Islamic Jihad's military wing said in a statement on Friday.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said well over 80 people had also been injured in the Israeli attack earlier in the day.

There were various reactions to the Zionist regime's deadly attack on the Gaza Strip. The followings are the reactions to Friday’s airstrikes on Gaza:

Yemen’s Ansarullah

Furthermore, Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement, while condemning Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, underlined the Palestinian nation’s inalienable right to defend itself.

The political bureau of Ansarullah stressed that Palestinians reserve the right to respond to the barbaric aggression of the Tel Aviv regime.

Ansarullah also called on Arab and Muslim nations to honor their responsibilities, and help the Palestinian nation and resistance groups in their struggle against the occupying Israeli regime.

Iraqi resistance groups

The Iraqi resistance movement Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq also said, “We emphasize our constant solidarity with the Palestinian nation, and their resistance to thwart aggressors' plots.”

The anti-terror Kata'ib Hezbollah movement stated, “We are not surprised by the assassination of our brethren in Gaza by the Zionist regime. We are astounded by the silence of the Arab world.” 

“Repeated Israeli attacks against the resilient Palestinian nation are the unfortunate outcome of normalization of ties with the Zionist regime. Targeted killings and bombardment of residential buildings is a confirmation of the enemy’s criminal approach,” it added.

United Nations

The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, warned the “dangerous” escalation risked creating the need for more aid at a time when world resources were stretched by other conflicts.

“In the past few hours, at least 10 Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes. I am deeply saddened by reports that a five-year-old child has been killed in these strikes. There can be no justification for any attacks against civilians,” said Wennesland.

“The launching of rockets must cease immediately, and I call on all sides to avoid further escalation.”

Arab League 

The Arab League in a statement condemned the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, saying, “it holds the occupiers responsible for its consequences and bloody crimes.”

Iran 

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan'ani strongly condemned on Friday the Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.

"It is the legal right of the Palestinian people and resistance groups to act and defend themselves in the face of the aggression and terrorist moves of the Zionist regime," the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

He added that the Israeli regime's new wave of air strikes across the besieged Palestinian enclave was a "criminal, adventurous and provocative" move.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson emphasized that the "apartheid regime of Israel" shoulders full responsibility for the "crime" and the consequences of its aggression on Palestine and the Gaza Strip.

Kan'ani urged all countries and international organizations to fulfill their legal, moral and human responsibility to defend the oppressed Palestinian people and condemn the Israeli regime's terrorist moves.

They should also take measures to stop the continuation of such crimes by the Tel Aviv regime, which is the main factor behind instability and insecurity in the region, he said.

Turkey

Ankara “strongly” condemned the Israeli air raids on Gaza and said it is “unacceptable that civilians, including children, lose their lives in attacks”.

The foreign ministry in a statement urged “restraint and common sense” following the deadly attacks on the blockaded enclave.

Egypt

Cairo is working to calm the latest escalation in Gaza. “We hope to reach a consensus to return to calm as soon as possible,” an unnamed security source told AFP news agency. Separately, another source said a delegation from Islamic Jihad may head to Cairo later Saturday.

Qatar

Qatar expressed its “strong condemnation and denunciation” of Friday’s attacks. It stressed “the need for the international community to move urgently to stop the [Israeli] occupation’s repeated attacks against civilians, especially women and children”.

In a statement Friday, the foreign affairs ministry reiterated the State of Qatar’s firm position on the justice of the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the brotherly Palestinian people.

Jordan

Amman demanded that Israel “immediately stop its aggression” on the Gaza Strip. Spokesman Haitham Abu al-Ful warned of “dangerous” consequences that “will only increase tension and violence and deepen the environment of despair”.

Lebanese Hezbollah

In a statement, the Lebanese Hezbollah offered condolence over the martyrdom of some of the Islamic Jihad Movement’s commanders and stressed the necessity of supporting the Palestinians and their resistance movement in order to liberate the Palestinian occupied lands and prisoners.

Islamic Jihad

Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah said the Israeli enemy must expect a "non-stop" confrontation in the wake of the Friday aggression.

There will be no truce following this attack, the Islamic Jihad official said. All resistance groups must struggle under one flag in this fight, Nakhalah said.

In a statement, the Islamic Jihad said, “The enemy has begun a war targeting our people, and we all have the duty to defend ourselves and our people, and not allow the enemy to get away with its actions, which are aimed at undermining the resistance and national steadfastness.”

Hamas

Hamas, Islamic Jihad’s fellow Gaza-based resistance movement, also said the Israeli enemy "committed a new crime" and must "pay its price."

Ghazi Hamad, a senior official for Hamas – the group that governs the Strip – said the latest attack is “a brutal crime, a massacre done by the Israeli occupation against our people”.

Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh also condemned the criminal attacks of the Zionist army on the Gaza Strip, calling for stopping the crimes of the Zionist enemy against the Palestinian people.

ZZ/

News Code 189918