Erdogan calls for pressure on US to stop Israel’s offensive

AFP Published November 12, 2023

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called for pressure on the United States to stop Israel’s offensive in Gaza, but said there would be no agreement unless Washington accepted the enclave as Palestinian land.

Erdogan returned from a summit on Saturday of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh, which condemned Israeli forces’ “barbaric actions” in Gaza without approving concrete punitive measures.

He is due to visit Germany on Friday and plans to travel to Egypt and host Iran’s president in the coming weeks.

“We should hold talks with Egypt and the Gulf countries, and pressure the United States,” Erdogan told Turkish reporters on board his return flight from Riyadh.

Besieged Gaza: Israeli strike destroys Al-Shifa hospital cardiac ward, says health official

“The US should increase its pressure on Israel. The West should increase pressure on Israel… It’s vital for us to secure a ceasefire,” he said.

Erdogan, who was on a trip to a northeastern Turkish village when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Ankara on November 5, did not rule out a meeting with President Joe Biden.

“The most important country that needs to be involved is the United States, which has influence on Israel,” Erdogan said.

But he said that he would not call Biden.

Blinken “has just been here (in Turkiye). I guess Biden will host us from now on. It would not be suitable for me to call Biden,” he said.

WHO says it has lost communication with its contacts in Al Shifa hospital in Gaza

Erdogan said the US must accept Gaza as Palestinian land.

“We cannot agree with Biden if he approaches (the conflict) by seeing Gaza as the land of occupying settlers or Israel, rather than the land of the Palestinian people,” he said.

Turkiye has been an increasingly vocal critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which was triggered after Hamas staged an October 7 attack into Israel which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to the most recent Israeli figures.

Israel’s relentless campaign in response has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

In another speech in Istanbul on Sunday, Erdogan vented fury at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in comments broadcast live on Turkish television.

“Hey Netanyahu, these are your good days, more different days are awaiting you… Netanyahu you should know that you’re leaving,” Erdogan said, after previously labelling the Israeli leader “no longer someone we can talk to”.

Germany visit

Erdogan will meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz next week.

Turkiye is technically a candidate for eventual EU membership and, even if this seems a distant prospect, Erdogan’s portrayal of Hamas as “liberators” – which differs sharply from the bloc’s – has caused unease.

It also stands in stark contrast to the position taken by Berlin, the EU’s most populous member.

In its annual report on candidate countries’ progress published this week, the EU said Turkiye’s “rhetoric in support of terrorist group Hamas following its attacks against Israel… is in complete disagreement with the EU approach.”

“The European Union thinks exactly the same as Israel regarding Hamas,” Erdogan said on the plane.

“I see Hamas as a political party that won the elections in Palestine. I don’t look at it the same way they do,” he added.

Erdogan repeated his call for an international conference to resolve the conflict.

“Nothing can serve peace more than a meeting of all regional actors including warring sides,” he said.

The Israel-Hamas War in Context

Members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, are seen in the back of a pickup truck during the inauguration of Shehab Square in the west of Gaza City, Sept. 21, 2022.

 (Yousef Masoud/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

KEREN SETTON
11/12/2023

A tricky past, a bloody present, and a future in the dark

On October 7, it was an early Saturday morning when hundreds of Hamas terrorists stormed the border with Israel, tearing down barbed wire and ramming tractors into the barrier between the Gaza Strip and the Jewish state. Consumed with decades of disdain toward Israel, they raided communities on the border, killing approximately 1,200 Israelis, wounding thousands more, and abducting around 240 people, taking them into Gaza as hostages.

Israel immediately vowed to retaliate, launching a massive air offensive on the Gaza Strip and preparing for a ground invasion that began three weeks later. Since then, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-run government in Gaza, more than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed and 27,000 injured.

Hamas and Israel have been enemies for decades. An organization that has championed armed resistance against Israel, Hamas is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis throughout the years.

The Gaza Strip was captured from Egyptian military rule by Israel in the 1967 war. Thousands of Israelis then settled in the territory, living amid over 2 million Palestinians. The late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to unilaterally evacuate the territory in 2005, leaving it to the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the Fatah party. Soon after, the internal Palestinian rivalry materialized in a historical split that has divided Palestinians between the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas had won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 with a 44% plurality of votes and 56% of the seats, and a power-sharing deal with Fatah was unattainable. The rivalry between Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah party peaked in 2007 when Hamas violently took over Gaza from the hands of Fatah. Since then, attempts to reconcile between the sides have failed. There have also been no elections in the PA or Gaza since.

Hamas’ roots

Founded in the late 1980s, Hamas is an Islamist group—a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—and is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Many countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Japan, and Israel, as well as the supranational European Union, have designated the group as a terrorist organization.

“Hamas was born out of the failure of the Palestinian national movement to put an end to the Israeli occupation,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. “They advocated a return to Islam because other movements did not succeed.”

“The Palestinians wanted their cause to stay alive,” Abusada added. In the aftermath of the 1967 war in which the Arab countries that attacked Israel were defeated; Islamic nationalism was appealing to the Palestinians.

Hamas has since been backed by Iran, both by funding, material support, and training of its militants.

Its founder was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, an Islamic cleric who was born in 1936 in British Mandatory Palestine, before the establishment of the State of Israel.

“Hamas took the Muslim religion and imposed it on the Palestinian national movement,” said Dr. Ronni Shaked, author of Hamas-the Islamic Movement and Middle East and Islam Research Unit coordinator at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace. “Their armed resistance against Israel thus became a jihad, representing a nationalism that seeks the destruction of Israel.”

Yassin served time in Israeli prisons and was released as part of a deal in 1997. Israeli forces assassinated him in 2004. Under Yassin, Hamas was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis as a result of suicide bombings during the years of the Second Intifada.

Other than being a resistance movement, from its inception Hamas took a social role in Palestinian society, performing charitable work. Over the years, as the PA’s popularity declined, the popularity of Hamas increased. Wary of its growing strength, Israel continued to fortify its border with the Gaza Strip. It also continuously operates against Hamas in the West Bank territories, including those under full control of the PA.

Hamas’ leadership is currently split between Gaza and Qatar. Yahya Sinwar is Hamas’ leader on the ground in the Gaza Strip. Sinwar was sentenced to jail in Israel for killing two Israeli soldiers. Amongst Palestinians, he became known for his cruel treatment of Palestinians who were suspected of collaboration with Israel. He was released in a prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas. The 2011 deal saw Israel release over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands, in exchange for one Israeli soldier who was held by Hamas for five years.

Since 2012, Hamas has run a political office in Doha, Qatar. Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Abu Marzouk, and Khaled Mashal are all rumored to lead a life of luxury in the Qatari capital, traveling frequently, raising money for Hamas, and directing its operations in Gaza from afar.

Israel’s disengagement from Gaza

In 2005, Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip. Jewish settlements were dismantled, with its 8,000 residents dispersed throughout communities within Israel and the West Bank. Israel’s military presence on the ground in Gaza was also dissolved. Israel retained control over the border crossings with Israel, including control over its airspace and territorial waters.

On the other side of Gaza’s southern border lies Egypt. Gazans may expect more from Egypt, which has taken a harsh stance against Hamas, pragmatically preferring its peace with Israel.

The unilateral move was initiated by then-Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, who believed Israel should gradually separate from territories that would likely not be part of the Jewish state in any future settlement with the Palestinians. The move was welcomed by the left wing of Israeli politics but largely condemned by the right. Some thought Israel had a historical right to the territory, others believed leaving it to Palestinian control would increase terrorism from the territory.

All the while, Gaza residents remain highly dependent on Israel.

“Israel disengaged from Gaza, but Gaza stayed in Israel,” said Shaked. “Israel supplies most of Gaza’s electricity, water, and goods to the great benefit of the Israeli economy which gained another 2 million customers.”

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Palestinians have entered Israel to work since Israel captured the Gaza Strip in 1967. The number of permits has fluctuated, often symbiotic with the rise and ease of tensions.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated territories in the world and also one of its poorest. Each escalation with Israel further exacerbated the situation.

“The unilateral move was a strategic mistake made by Israel,” Abusada told The Media Line. “They did not coordinate with the PA which was exhausted after the years of the second Intifadah. Hamas took advantage of this and promoted Israel’s withdrawal as a victory for the Palestinian resistance and a defeat for those who believe in peace with Israel.”

After Hamas violently took over the Gaza Strip, Israel imposed its harshest blockade on the area. Before that, there were intermittent blockades barring goods from entering the Strip and Palestinian laborers from entering Israel. Israel has often restricted the entrance of what it calls “dual usage” materials, that can be used both for civilian and military purposes, claiming Hamas often seizes items such as fuel and other construction goods in order to advance its military preparations.

Attempts to break the blockade have led to increased tensions between Israel and Hamas, who have fought several wars since 2007.

In the lead-up to the current war, Gaza residents approached the security fence with Israel, demonstrating against the blockade. Israel in response barred the entrance of Gaza laborers into the country for a short period. In an attempt to diffuse the tensions, Israel then lifted the sanction, allowing workers in. Days later, the Hamas embarked on its surprise offensive, a move that will likely change the balance of power on the border for the coming future.

Hamas-Fatah rivalry and the hostile takeover of the Gaza Strip

As long as the Palestinians were under the leadership of the late Yasser Arafat, founder of the Fatah party, the divisions between Hamas and the more pragmatic Fatah were contained. His death in 2004, saw a rise in the tensions between the two political entities.

Hamas’ violent takeover of the Gaza Strip saw the perpetuation of the rift between the two factions. There were casualties on both sides as hundreds lost their lives in the internal strife. One of the scenes sketched in the memories of Palestinians was an officer from Abbas’ elite Presidential Guard being thrown from the roof of Gaza’s tallest building.

“Hamas sought to take over Fatah, in order to take over the whole rule of the Palestinians,” Shaked told The Media Line.

Repeated attempts at reconciliation have been futile. Hamas retained power in Gaza, driving out Fatah supporters. Fatah, led by Abbas, continues to control some of the West Bank territories not controlled by Israel. Hamas’ popularity in the West Bank continues to rise, posing a threat to Abbas and to Israel. This has also led Abbas to repeatedly delay elections for over 15 years, due to fear of losing control to Hamas in the West Bank.

The international community has never recognized Hamas as a sovereign in the Gaza Strip. In addition to a stringent blockade enforced by both Egypt and Israel, Hamas was an isolated movement.

“The rejection by Israel, and others, of the 2006 election results, led to the radicalism of Hamas,” said Abusada. “Had they engaged Hamas, we would not be in this situation today.”

For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who came to power for his second term in 2009, the rift played into his plan to deny Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu has been quoted as saying that keeping Hamas in power in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“Netanyahu seeks to annex the West Bank and has been doing so gradually,” said Shaked. “In order to do this, he was willing to see Gaza ruled by Hamas. He knew but he didn’t really understand what Hamas is.”

The day after the war

Speaking to Israelis on Saturday, Netanyahu ruled out the return of the PA to rule in Gaza once the Israeli operation is finished.

Until then, it remains to be seen whether Israel will be able to topple Hamas as it has set out to do. Such an outcome will leave a power vacuum in Gaza.

On the one hand, a weakened Hamas may be pushed to reconcile with the PA. On the other hand, Abbas will have a difficult time bringing Hamas back in as international opinion against the organization is largely negative in light of its attack against Israel.

“There are so many unanswered questions,” Abusada summarized.

ON THE GROUND
Palestinian journalist’s harrowing escape from Gaza City highlights trauma of Israel’s war

As intense Israeli bombardments shook his neighbourhood near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, Palestinian journalist Rami Abujamus fled his home with his wife and four-year-old son over the weekend. They were part of a small group of neighbours, waving white flags, as they made a dangerous escape, which Abujamus filmed on his mobile phone, providing rare footage of the toll of the war on human lives. (Warning: Viewer discretion advised, some images may be disturbing.)

Issued on: 12/11/2023 - 

Residents of a Gaza City neighbourhood hold white flags as they prepare to make a harrowing escape under heavy bombardment on November 11, 2023. 

© Rami Abou Jammous, FRANCE 24

By:FRANCE 24Follow|FRANCE 24|

Video by: Rami ABUJAMUS

Following a night of intense Israeli strikes that shook his home near Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, Palestinian journalist Rami Abujamus and his neighbours received an evacuation order from the Israeli army, telling them to wave white flags during their flight.

Israel says it is not targeting civilians and has issued evacuations orders for residents of northern Gaza to head to the southern districts.

But Abujamus’s flight, with his wife and four-year-old son, provides a harrowing account of the situation inside the besieged Palestinian enclave after more than a month of intense Israeli bombardments.


>> Click on video player to watch the full report. Warning: Viewer discretion advised, some images may be disturbing.

NAKBA 2.0

Beatings, threats at gunpoint and fleeing in terror: Inside the most aggressive West Bank land grab in 50 years


Bel Trew

The Independent UK

Fri, November 10, 2023

The six-year-old son of Ali Arrara, who has not stopped crying since the family were forced from their land at gunpoint (Bel Trew/The Independent)

The man in Israeli military uniform sliced off Mohamed’s clothes with a knife, urinated on him, and then, after relentlessly beating him, tried to rape him with a stick. He details the assault that took place in the village of Wadi al-Siq, about 20 miles northeast of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.

Mohamed Mattar, 46, a Palestinian activist and humanitarian, had come to this Bedouin community to assist 30 Palestinian families that lived there. They appealed for help as attacks by Israeli settlers across the occupied West Bank had surged and become dangerously violent in the aftermath of Hamas’s brutal attack in southern Israel on 7 October.

There were reports that armed settlers were planning a “cleansing day” in retaliation for the attack by Hamas that killed 1,400 people. And so on that day – 12 October – panicked families in Wadi al-Siq, who had already been subjected to multiple terrifying armed raids, decided to evacuate. With Mohamed’s help, they began loading the cars up, but before they could successfully leave, two pickup trucks arrived, packed with armed settlers and men in military uniforms.

Mohamed says the men – he identifies them as a mixed group of Israeli police, soldiers, and settlers in military uniforms – forced those gathered to empty their bags at gunpoint, and found kitchen knives among their belongings. Mohamed says they accused him of planning to stab one of them.

“They took me and two other men deep into the village so that no one could hear our voices. And then they took turns to hit us one by one for two hours,” Mohamed tells The Independent while showing photos of his injuries immediately after the attack, and of the scars that still crisscross his body. He was blindfolded, and his hands were bound by metal wire, which has left permanent gouge marks on his wrists.

He says one of his assailants – who he believes to have been an Israeli settler in military uniform – then cut off his clothes with a knife, sprayed him with water, urinated on him, and started beating him savagely with sticks and a rifle.

Mohamed Mattar, 46, shows the injuries he sustained in the assault (Mohamed Mattar)

“My attacker lost his mind – he started jumping on my back to break my spine, like he wanted to disable me. He kept shouting, “All Arabs should die. All who don’t die should go to Jordan,” Mohamed says.

Then the man tried to insert a stick into Mohamed’s anus, he says. “I fought him hard to get him off my back to stop him from assaulting me like this. He broke the stick into three pieces by beating me.”

In the end, after multiple calls were made to the Israeli military, a commander intervened. Mohamed was released and remains wounded weeks later.

But the 30 families, comprising 180 people including 25 children, were forced to flee their homes despite having lived in Wadi al-Siq for more than three decades.

“They told us at gunpoint we had to leave,” says Ali Arrara, 35, a father of five, speaking from a tent in an olive grove in a nearby town where he is now camping with the other displaced families.

“I wanted to take the medicine for my immunocompromised three-year-old daughter from the fridge, but they wouldn’t even allow me to do that.

“They destroyed the fridge and the medicines in front of me,” he adds.

The children now live in fear, and cannot stop crying. Behind Ali, one of his sons, a six-year-old boy, is in floods of tears.

“My older daughter, who is four years old, was so scared. Now, whenever she sees a car or pickup truck, she screams ‘They are coming,’” says Ali.

The story of Wadi al-Siq is not an isolated one. The occupied West Bank is fast “boiling over”, according to the UN, whose top officials have repeatedly raised the alarm. They fear a spillover risk from Gaza, which could open another front in this already devastating war.

Ali Arrara, 35, by a tent in an olive grove where his family is now camping (Bel Trew/The Independent)

Around 450,000 Jewish settlers now live in the occupied West Bank, which is home to around 3 million Palestinians. The settlements – which range in size from hilltop caravans to sprawling commuter towns – are built on land captured by Israel in a 1967 war, and have been steadily expanding. They are illegal under international law, and are often cited as the main obstacle to peace, and to a two-state solution involving Palestine.

International and local rights groups say that “state-sponsored settler violence” has long been on the rise, and is used, alongside building restrictions and the strangling of access to amenities, to force Palestinians off their land. Most of this action is concentrated in Area C (where Wadi al-Siq is located), which makes up two-thirds of the West Bank. As laid out in the second Oslo Accord of 1995, it is under Israeli civilian control.

But these attacks, and land grabs, have accelerated in the month since Hamas’s brutal massacre, which Israel has responded to by ferociously bombing Gaza.

The United Nations says that since 7 October there has been a sevenfold increase in settler attacks on West Bank Palestinians in comparison to two years ago. “In nearly half of all incidents, Israeli forces were either accompanying or actively supporting the attacks,” says the UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA.

This year was already shaping up to be the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank in 20 years. That is now more true than ever. According to OCHA, in the last month, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 158 Palestinians, including 45 children. Three Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians. Fifteen people have been killed by Israeli forces in the last 24 hours alone in Jenin city and the refugee camp located there.

Against the backdrop of violence, the UN says that almost 1,000 Palestinians – like the inhabitants of Wadi al-Siq – have been displaced from their lands in the last month alone. (An additional 162 people, half of them children, are displaced because Israel has demolished their homes.)



Israeli human rights groups say this is the single biggest land grab since Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, and likely amounts to the war crime of forcible transfer.

“This government is using the fact that all eyes are on Gaza right now to promote its agenda of taking over more Palestinian land,” says Roy Yellin of Btselem, an Israeli rights group that has documented the forced displacement of 15 Palestinian communities across the West Bank since 7 October.

“State-backed settler violence is one of the tools in this forced displacement. The threats are concrete: armed individuals threaten them with weapons and tell them they have 24 hours to leave. The inhabitants of Wadi al-Siq left without their belongings.”

The Independent has asked the military about these incidents, along with several others that have been caught on camera. The Independent spoke to one man who appeared in a video that showed eight Palestinian men blindfolded, bound on the ground, and partially stripped in Yatta, around 35 miles (55km) south of Wadi al-Siq. The man confirmed that the incident had taken place, but said he was too upset to talk about it.

Another disturbing video that surfaced online last week, also reported to have been filmed in Yatta, shows several men in Israeli uniform dragging a group of naked Palestinian workers on top of each other. One of the men in uniform kicks one of the Palestinian men in the face. The Independent has been unable to verify the video.

The Israeli military said: “The conduct of the force that emerges from the footage is deplorable and does not comply with the army’s orders. The circumstances of the incident are being examined.”

The military added that the conduct of the individuals who appeared in other videos “is not in line with the IDF’s orders”.

They did not comment on the actions of the individuals wearing military uniforms who attacked Wadi al-Siq on 12 October or the other communities whose members spoke to The Independent.

A man points towards Wadi al-Siq from the location where families have now been forced to stay (Bel Trew/The Independent)

The military said that the main body responsible for handling claims for law violations by Israelis is the Israel Police, and that the Palestinians should file a complaint with them.

“When IDF soldiers encounter incidents of violations of the law by Israelis, and especially violent incidents or incidents directed at Palestinians and their property, they are required to act to stop the violation and, if necessary, to delay or detain the suspects until the police arrive at the scene. IDF soldiers are instructed to act as follows,” the military added.

But the levels of violence have even worried Israel’s closest allies. US president Joe Biden has unsuccessfully lobbied Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rein in the violence from settlers. US secretary of state Antony Blinken said this week that Washington had repeatedly “made very clear our concerns about extremist violence in the West Bank”.

“We’ve heard the Israeli government make commitments on dealing more effectively with that, and we’re watching very closely to make sure that that happens,” he said recently.

In a letter to Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has also raised his concerns about the “sharp increase in violence and displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank”.

Since the Hamas attack in October, he said, “there has been an increase in recordings of instances of settler violence, threats, and intimidation against Palestinian communities – with homes vandalised, water supplies cut, livestock stolen and civilians threatened at gunpoint”. He added: “As the occupying power, Israel has obligations under international law that it must uphold.”

Rights groups say the biggest concern right now is the fact that settlers feel emboldened, with hate against Palestinians having surged since 7 October. It comes as the Israeli government is trying to sign settlers up to the military, and to new civilian rapid-response teams in the occupied West Bank, in the wake of the Hamas attack.

Abu Mohamed Suleiman, 52, who was forcibly displaced from Ein Rashash (Bel Trew/The Independent)

The national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir – a far-right pro-settler politician – has gone as far as to announce that his ministry is purchasing thousands of rifles to arm these new militias.

Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli daily newspaper, has reported that the military intends to recruit settlers aged between 27 and 50 who have not undergone military service.

“The recruits are expected to undergo accelerated basic training for three weeks, after which they will be armed and stationed in the settlements,” the paper wrote, adding that since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, the IDF has handed out some 8,000 weapons to regional defence battalions in the West Bank.

Concerns over the mass arming of settlers have prompted the US into action. On Tuesday, state department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that Washington had sought assurances from Israel that a new shipment of US rifles, including M-16s, would only go to government agencies and not to civilian rapid-response teams.

“We have heard from the Israeli government that they are going to make a commitment on dealing with extremist violence more effectively,” Patel said.

For the Palestinians, it is extremely frightening. Rania Zuwahara, 43, who has 10 children, is among 85 villagers who were recently forced out of their home village of Ein Rashash, close to Wadi al-Siq. She says that residents have long dealt with attacks from settlers, but their “fear is 10 times worse after the war”.

She says her community was threatened with armoured bulldozers and men with rifles multiple times before the final attack took place a few weeks ago. The villagers are now scattered across a number of locations, and they have no idea where they will live in the long term.

“This was our land for 33 years and we were evicted from it at gunpoint. It is a hellish feeling you can’t explain. We lived in fear every day,” says Rania. “It is so obvious what they [settlers] are doing – they have been trying to do this long before the war, but they are pushing forward 10 times as hard.”

Displaced Gazans live in dust, fear and hunger

Khan Yunis (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – At first Youssef Mehna thought the war would quickly be over. Then he was wounded, his house was destroyed, and he was forced to survive "25 days without anything".

Issued on: 12/11/2023

Displaced Palestinian children wait for food in Khan Yunis © MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

So like thousands of others, Mehna finally fled north Gaza for the south.

Perched on trucks, crammed into cars, pulled by donkeys on carts, and on foot, tens of thousands of Palestinians are fleeing Israeli army strikes on the territory squeezed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean.

At the Bani Suheila crossroads in Khan Yunis, on the immense Salah Al-Din road that threads Gaza top to bottom, the processions are growing still.

People fleeing Gaza City are joined by those leaving Khan Yunis heading further south, towards Rafah, the last city before Egypt.

Mehna left the Jabalia refugee camp at seven in the morning, in the north of Gaza City, also hoping to reach Rafah.

But his journey finished in Khan Yunis, after eight hours of travel covering only 25 kilometres (15 miles).

"I already paid 500 shekels ($130) to come from Jabalia and so I have nothing more to carry on to Rafah," he said with a drawn face, surrounded by his six children.
'Not even a morsel of bread'

Because his sick wife is in a wheelchair, he had to rent "carts pulled by donkeys, trucks, cars" to transport her.

Each trip was short, as fuel shortages prevent drivers from accepting long-distance fares.
A displaced Palestinian family from northern Gaza now shelters in the grounds of a Khan Yunis school © MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

Sometimes, between car rides, they were forced to go on foot. "So it was me who pushed my wife's chair," he told AFP.

Around him, hundreds of families were waiting.

Children sleep on the floor beside parents wondering how they will live in a territory where more than 1.5 million people are displaced and nearly one house in two has been destroyed, according to the United Nations.

In southern Gaza, overflowing with displaced from the north, rents of $150 a month are now up to $500 to $1000.

"I don't even have a morsel of bread to feed my kids," said Umm Yaaqub. "Since six in the morning I have been looking everywhere."

"I can't give them anything to eat," added the 42-year-old, who arrived in Khan Yunis three days ago with her husband and seven children from Gaza City.

The UN has said access to bread in the south is "challenging" because "the only operative mill in Gaza remains unable to grind wheat due to a lack of electricity and fuel".

On October 7 Hamas, in power in Gaza, launched an attack on southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians and taking 239 hostages, according to Israel.

Since then Israel has been bombing the Gaza Strip and has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas health ministry.
A displaced woman sits outside a makeshift tent in the grounds of a school in Khan Yunis © MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

Before the war, a little over 80 per cent of Gazans lived in poverty and almost two-thirds were dependent on international aid, especially for food, according to the UN.

Now, 50-kilo sacks of flour have increased in price from 40 shekels to 150 shekels, so it's worse still.
'Not a single shekel'

But hunger is not the only worry for Umm Yaaqub. "My husband has heart problems," she says.

And her 20-year-old daughter Rim "is normally in a medical bed". "But we all sleep on the ground, in the dust, and we don't have a single blanket even though the nights are very cold."

Her husband Atef Abu Jarad, 47, remains in a classroom on the first floor of a school where the family camps now, next to dozens of other displaced.

"I'm the head of the family, but I don't have a single shekel to buy something for my kids to eat," he laments.
Still time for play: displaced Palestinian children who now live in a Khan Yunis school © Mahmud HAMS / AFP

Shops across southern Gaza are running out of everything. Bottled water, milk for children, nappies, pasta and juices are now nearly impossible to find.

A little food aid is trickling through to the displaced according to Abu Jarad: "a portion of rice to share between seven" members of his family.

"So I take a small spoon of rice and I tell them I'm full so they can eat," he says.

Water flows from a tap where long crowds of displaced people queue. "People push and I don't have the strength to resist," he says.

His daughter Rim had to give up the painkillers she has taken since birth, because she suffers spinal and shoulder malformations.

She too forgoes meals because her brothers and sisters "have more need to eat".

© 2023 AFP

‘Please stop this.’ Gaza’s hospitals are failing under the weight of war. US medical groups are scrambling to help


Alaa Elassar, CNN
Sat, November 11, 2023 

Dr. Mohammed Ghneim has not left his hospital in Gaza City in four weeks. He can’t remember the last time he slept or ate, and his blue scrubs are stained in the blood of patients who’ve died in his arms.

His voice cracks under the weight of the horrors he’s seen: fetuses pulled from the wombs of dying mothers, children with crushed lungs struggling to breathe, and his own colleagues – doctors, nurses and EMTs – transported to the hospital morgue in body bags.

“We are doing our best – this is why we haven’t left here for days – but the situation is very horrible. There’s no way to describe it in any language or with any words,” Ghneim told CNN in a voice message on November 7, as sounds of chaos and panic unfolded around him. “Many times I want to go to the side and cry, but unfortunately there is no time.”

Ghneim is an emergency room doctor at Dar Al-Shifa, also known as Al-Shifa Hospital or Shifa, and is Arabic for “house of healing.” But at this hospital – the largest medical complex in Gaza – there’s far too much death.

A Palestinian child receives treatment at Nasser Medical Center after a strike in Khan Younis, Gaza, on November 7. - Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

Shifa is running dangerously low on clean water, medicine, supplies and fuel. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians, injured or displaced by Israel’s war against Hamas, continue to pack its wards, seeking shelter from the seemingly endless barrage of airstrikes.

Israeli forces on Saturday surrounded Shifa in all directions, threatening the health and safety of those inside, according to Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, director-general of the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike destroyed the hospital’s generator, Al-Bursh said, cutting electricity to the building, including life-saving equipment used by 39 infants in neonatal care. Three infants have already died, he added.

The Israeli military denied that the hospital is under siege, telling CNN it was engaged in “ongoing intense fighting” against Hamas in the vicinity of Shifa, but declined to comment further on its forces’ proximity to the complex because military activity was still underway. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover — a charge doctors at Shifa and the militant group deny.

“We are trained to deal with mass casualties, but not like this,” Ghneim, 28, said. “We have no anesthesia to treat patients with severe pain, patients with shrapnel in their head or abdomen, people whose arms or legs have been amputated.”

Palestinians inspect the damage to an ambulance struck by the Israeli military at the entrance of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. - Anas al-Shareef/Reuters

Alarming scenes from inside Shifa, and other hospitals across Gaza, have sparked international calls for a ceasefire and more aid to be allowed to enter the territory, home to some 2 million Palestinians, currently closed off to the world by Israel and Egypt.

Nonprofit medical groups across the United States are mobilizing to raise funds and ship medicine and supplies to failing hospitals before it’s too late. But with the situation in Gaza spiraling and few diplomatic or humanitarian solutions in sight, many worry the delay will result in more deaths.

“I want to say to the world, this is a humanitarian crisis, this is a genocide,” Ghneim pleaded from his crowded emergency room. “Please stop this.”
‘Desperate to send help’

More than 7,000 miles away, in Houston, Mosab Nasser is making travel plans to visit communities where he can spread awareness about the situation in Gaza and raise funds for struggling hospitals.

The proud Texan, born and raised in Gaza, says it’s all he’s been doing since October 7, when Israel declared war following a brazen attack by Hamas that killed around 1,200 people and took more than 230 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel responded by imposing a siege and launching devastating airstrikes across Gaza, which Hamas governs. Israel says its goal is to destroy the militant group and return the hostages, but it is the Palestinian people living there who are bearing the brunt of the attacks.

The airstrikes have killed at least 11,025 Palestinians, including 4,506 children, and wounded more than 27,000 others so far, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws its figures from sources in Hamas-run Gaza.

Nasser says three of his relatives – all young children, including one who was only 8 months old – were killed when Israeli airstrikes caused their home to collapse, but he has no time to grieve.

As CEO of the nonprofit medical group FAJR Scientific, he is obligated to find a way to deliver aid and other resources to hospitals in need.

FAJR Scientific’s goal is to raise enough money to fill five 40-foot containers with medical supplies, surgical tools and sterile instruments, and ship them to Gaza, Nasser says.

“Doctors in Gaza don’t get to go home. It’s traumatic for them,” Nasser said. “They are exhausted. Their bodies are physically at the hospital, but their minds are with their families trying to check on them.”

A Palestinian nurse at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, mourns after receiving news that his brother was killed on November 9. - Abed Zagout/Anadolu/Getty Images

In some cases, Nasser says, medical workers have discovered their own loved ones among the injured or dead, compounding the fears and anxieties they already experience.

It’s not the first time FAJR Scientific has supported Gaza’s medical community. The group has led several surgical missions to Gaza and trained nearly 100 Palestinian medical workers on the ground, Nasser says. In August, they provided more than $4 million in medical supplies to hospitals across the territory.

The Palestinian American Medical Association (PAMA), another US-based nonprofit, is also leading efforts to assist health care workers in Gaza.

The group, which has more than 6,000 members and supporters and leads medical missions to the region, has raised over $2 million so far, PAMA president Dr. Mustafa Musleh told CNN.

They will use the money to purchase critical medicine and supplies, including anesthetics, antibiotics and other medications to fill containers that will be sent to Gaza. The group also has more than 1,000 health-care professionals on standby to enter the enclave as soon as Israel and Egypt allow entry to humanitarian workers, Musleh says.

“We’re desperate to send help,” the Palestinian American doctor from Dayton, Ohio, said. “It’s a catastrophic situation. … There’s 10 times more patients than what the hospitals can take care of and they’re all coming with serious life-threatening injuries that need immediate attention, and a lot of people die because of that.”

Patients and internally displaced people are pictured at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 10. - Khader Al Zanoun/AFP/Getty Images

FAJR Scientific and PAMA are among several US medical groups coordinating efforts. But so far, few have been able to reach hospitals under siege.

Since the start of the war, only about 900 trucks carrying international aid – but not fuel – have been allowed to enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. That’s only a trickle compared to the approximately 500 trucks that entered each day before the war. PRCS warns that Gaza will need substantially more aid to meet growing humanitarian needs.
‘Waiting for a miracle’

Ahmad Muhanna, director of Al Awda Hospital in Jabalya, says the real nightmare is treating maimed children, whose faces he sees even when he closes his eyes.

“I’m being torn apart inside witnessing our children being martyred and receiving the carnage of their body parts, when they have no fault in this conflict,” Muhanna told CNN on October 29 from his hospital in northern Gaza.

Doctors are performing surgeries, including amputations, on children without clean water, let alone anesthesia or antibiotics, he says. Many are being treated on the floor due to a lack of empty hospital beds.

Israeli airstrikes at or near medical facilities have further complicated the matter, Muhanna, 49, adds. Medical workers are in constant danger.

As of November 10, 198 health care workers have been killed and 130 others wounded in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. It also reports 21 hospitals and 51 primary health care centers are out of service.

Al-Shifa Hospital is lit up in Gaza City amid fuel shortages on October 24. - Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Israel says it’s only targeting Hamas, whom it accuses of using hospitals to hide and launch attacks. The Palestinian Ministry of Health and Hamas deny such claims.

Israel says civilian deaths and the destruction of vital facilities, including hospitals, are collateral damage it tries to mitigate, and that Palestinians should flee to safer areas. But doctors in Gaza say it’s impossible to evacuate patients without causing more death, and that nowhere is truly safe.

“The Israeli air force is terrorizing us day and night above our tiny spot in the world,” said Muhanna, who believes high casualties prove Israel is not trying to mitigate civilian deaths. “They don’t have boundaries, no red lines they cannot cross. They have crossed every line by targeting women, elders, children, men, the disabled and every possible living thing.”

The chaos unfolding at Shifa, Al Awda and other hospitals across Gaza has left doctors exasperated. But with no ceasefire on the horizon and the borders tightly controlled, preventing vital supplies from reaching hospitals, more people will continue to die.

“We feel helpless towards our patients,” said Ghneim, the emergency room doctor at Shifa. “We want to provide patients with appropriate health care, but in many cases there’s nothing we can do.”

Meanwhile, Nasser and Musleh scramble to fundraise, buy supplies and coordinate shipping to the Rafah border crossing, where truckers anxiously await permission to enter Gaza and unload their life-saving cargo.

“The whole world turned their back on the people of Gaza,” Nasser said. “And right now we’re only waiting for a miracle.”

The Ukraine War Is About Who Will Control the Future World Order

The war in Ukraine has put the U.S. and China on opposite sides of the conflict. The larger issue here, however, is about who will control the world order of the future.

By Alexandra Vacroux
November 12, 2023



U.S. President Joe Biden participates in a bilateral meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine during the G77 Summit, at the Grand Prince Hotel in Hiroshima, Japan, May 21, 2023,Credit: Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith


“Supporting Ukraine’s ability to fight off Russian aggression and defend its sovereignty requires a worldwide commitment,” U.S. President Joe Biden declared in January 2023. The Biden administration sees the war in Ukraine as a challenge to the world order. When the U.S. refers to the “world order,” it is referring to the system of institutions and rules that have governed international relations since World War II – a system once characterized by the competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and which the U.S. dominated for decades after 1991.

Much has changed in the past 80 years. The Cold War and the Soviet Union ended 30 years ago. China and India have become economic powerhouses. Developing economies and booming young populations in Africa, Asia, and South America mean that international relations is less and less about the ambitions of superpowers and more about groups of countries pursuing overlapping national interests together.

The war in Ukraine is the theater in which the United States and Europe are trying to assert their ability to continue setting the rules of the game. NATO allies want to keep Russia from expanding into Ukraine. They want to show Russia that if it tries to annex the territory of another country, there will be military and economic consequences. And they want to be the ones that decide what the rules of the game are going to be going forward.

The U.S. and its allies believe that they can supply Ukraine with enough weaponry to exhaust Russian military forces and materiel. Ukraine hopes that Western support intensifies enough and lasts long enough to push Russia out of the country. Russia believes that it can wait until the West is tired of supporting Ukraine and then move to control the country with a pro-Russian puppet government backed by Russian military might.

All sides are exhausted by this conflict. Many are wondering how long they can continue operating at this level of intensity. Wars end not because one side changes its goals, but because new information from the battlefield convinces one side that they will not accomplish their goals. Neither side is there yet.

In this context, the Ukrainians cannot be forced to renounce their goal of pushing Russia out of Ukrainian territory. At some point, a negotiated outcome will become preferable to ongoing war and its associated cost in life, limb, and living standards. It will be up to the Ukrainians to decide when they have reached that point. The Biden administration will support the Ukrainians as long as they continue fighting. Kyiv hopes, but cannot assume, that the next American administration will do the same.

China has tried to present itself as a peacemaker, but it is not doing much more to engender peace than the United States. By supporting Russia, an important partner, with trade and shared international clout, China allows Russia to believe that it can ultimately triumph in Ukraine. Ukraine cannot accept China as an objective party in this conflict, which means that other countries will have to step into the role of facilitating negotiations. Turkey has indicated that it may be willing to do this.

The war in Ukraine has put the United States and China on opposite sides of the conflict. The U.S. supports Ukraine; China supports Russia. The larger issue here, however, is about who will control the world order of the future. Will the U.S. and Europe continue to play an outsized role in setting global rules and organizations? Or will China, Russia, and other countries less convinced that the Western world order is in their interests win the day? This is the underlying conflict being played out in Ukraine.

In a series of articles, Chinese and American experts intend to make explicit the misperceptions that drive the mistrust in the ever-increasing instability in the bilateral relationship. Find the whole series here.

PM warns ministers to pipe down after comments on new ‘Nakba’ and nuking Gaza

Netanyahu cautions cabinet, ‘if you don’t know – don’t speak,’ as members’ comments seen to harm Israel’s international legitimacy

By TOI STAFFToday, 7:56 pm   0

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks about the Israel-Hamas war during a press conference on November 11, 2023. (Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned cabinet ministers Sunday to choose their words with care regarding Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group.

“Every word has meaning when it comes to diplomacy. If you don’t know — don’t speak,” the prime minister said during Sunday’s cabinet meeting.

“We must be sensitive,” he added.

The prime minister was referring to recent comments by ministers that are viewed as having caused damage to Israel’s international legitimacy.

Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter told Channel 12 on Saturday that the war was “Gaza’s Nakba” — the Arabic word for “catastrophe” that many Arabs used to describe the displacement of Palestinians amid the 1948 War of Independence.

The term has been widely used by Arab commentators to describe the devastation of the war, but its use by an Israeli minister gives fuel to claims that Israel is attempting to drive the Palestinian civilian population out of Gaza. Jerusalem insists it has no such plans.

When asked if Gaza residents would be able to return to their homes after the war, Dichter, a former Shin Bet chief, said, “I don’t know how it will end. You have to remember that Gaza City takes up about a third of the Strip. Half of the population but one-third of the Strip.”

Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu made waves in international media last week when he suggested one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas could be to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza, in comments that Netanyahu quickly disavowed, before suspending him from cabinet meetings.

Eliyahu, a member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party, was speaking in an answer to a question in a radio interview.

“Your expectation is that tomorrow morning we’d drop what amounts to some kind of nuclear bomb on all of Gaza, flattening them, eliminating everybody there…” the interviewer for Radio Kol Berama said.

“That’s one way,” Eliyahu responded. “The second way is to work out what’s important to them, what scares them, what deters them.”

Meanwhile, several ministers have stated that Israel could or should consider rebuilding settlements in the Strip, again contradicting Israel’s official position that it has no intention to reoccupy Gaza for the long term.

Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij, Gaza Strip, Nov. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

Israel has faced mounting international pressure over its military campaign as the reported death toll from Gaza has risen, with commentators expecting that calls for a ceasefire will only intensify as the weeks go by and the civilian costs rise. Israel declared war on Hamas after some 3,000 terrorists burst through the border from Gaza and slaughtered 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducted some 240, on October 7.

Jerusalem views global support — and US support in particular — as crucial for its effort to dismantle Hamas in the Strip, and has increasingly allowed humanitarian aid and civilian travel corridors amid the fighting.

On Saturday, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said ground forces, with air and naval support, were “deepening” operations in Gaza City. He said Hamas was losing control of northern Gaza, as civilians evacuate the area “against the instructions” of the terror group, and noted that some 200,000 had left the Strip’s north in the past three days.

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.

WWIII
Russian nuclear-sub test launches intercontinental missile
Agencies Published November 6, 2023

Russia’s new nuclear-powered submarine Imperator Alexander III test launches the Bulava ballistic missile, designed to carry nuclear warheads, from the White Sea, on Sunday.—Reuters


MOSCOW: Russia’s new strategic nuclear submarine, the Imperator Alexander III, has successfully tested a Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.

The missile, which the Federation of American Scientists says is designed to carry up to six nuclear warheads, was launched from an underwater position in the White Sea off Russia’s northern coast and hit a target thousands of kilometres away on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East, the defence ministry said.

“Firing a ballistic missile is the final element of state tests, after which a decision will be made to accept the cruiser into the Navy,” a ministry statement said.

The Imperator Alexander III is the seventh of the Russian Project 955 Borei (Arctic Wind) class nuclear submarines and the fourth of the modernised Borei-A variant, according to Russian sources.


They are known in Nat as the Dolgoruky class of submarines, after the first boat — the Yuri Dolgoruky — became the first new generation of nuclear submarine launched by Russia since the Cold War.

The Borei class submarine is armed with 16 Bulava missiles. The 12-metre (40-foot) missile has a range of about 8,000 km (5,000 miles).

Since rising to power in 1999, President Vladimir Putin has increased military spending and sought to rebuild Russia’s nuclear and conventional forces after the chaos that accompanied the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

The Ukraine war has triggered the worst crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the depths of the Cold War and Putin last month said he was not ready to say whether or not Russia should resume nuclear testing.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview aired on Sunday that relations with the United States were below zero. “Relations are at zero — or I would say below zero,” Peskov said, though he added that at some point the leaders of Russia and the United States would have to resume contact. “Putin has repeatedly stated that he is ready for any contacts,” Peskov said.

Russia aims to build a total of 10 to 12 Borei-class submarines to be divided between the Northern and Pacific fleets, according to the current plans disclosed by Russian media.

Three more Borei-class submarines are being built: the Knyaz Pozharsky, the Dmitry Donskoy and the Knyaz Potemkin. Two additional boats are also planned, according to Russian media. The 12-metre-long Bulava missile was designed to be the backbone of Moscow’s nuclear triad and has a range of over 8,000 kilometres (close to 5,000 miles).

The West has accused Moscow of using reckless nuclear rhetoric since it launched its offensive against Ukraine last February.

President Vladimir Putin earlier this week signed a law revoking Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a move strongly criticised by the United States.

The 1996 treaty outlaws all nuclear explosions, including live tests of nuclear weapons, though it never came into force because some key countries — including the United States and China — never ratified it.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2023

US Announces Deployment of Nuclear Submarine to Middle East in Rare Move

By Jack Davis, Western Journal 

November 6, 2023 

The meaning in the message that a powerful American weapon was in the Middle East was not in what it said, but that it was said at all.

On Sunday, U.S. Central Command took to X and announced to the world that the United States had a nuclear submarine prowling the vast Middle East waters of Central Command’s territory.

“On November 5, 2023, an Ohio-class submarine arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility,” Central Command posted


On November 5, 2023, an Ohio-class submarine arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. pic.twitter.com/iDgUFp4enp

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) November 5, 2023

In writing about the announcement, Stars and Stripes noted that announcing the presence of a vessel designed to operate unseen was “rare.”

Fox News shared that conclusion.

“The U.S. is intending to send an unmistakable message to its enemies as officials acknowledging the use of these submarines or sharing information about their location is very rare. They represent part of America’s so-called ‘nuclear triad’ of atomic weapons — which also includes land-based ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs aboard strategic bombers,” Fox News wrote.
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Fox News noted that Central Command also posted an image of a B-1 bomber, which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, it said was operating in the Middle East.


On November 5, 2023, a U.S. Air Force B-1 Lancer begins aerial refueling from a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 912th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron while conducting a Bomber Task Force mission over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. The mission was… pic.twitter.com/HQQn9EECIS

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) November 5, 2023

Collectively, the United States has more than 17,000 troops in the region that have been shifted there as a response to the Israel-Hamas war.
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“It’s unusual to highlight the movement of strategic weapon systems like an Ohio-class submarine,” Director of the Middle East Security program at the Center for a New American Security Jonathan Lord said, according to Time.

“It really speaks to the administration’s efforts to keep Hezbollah and other actors from joining this fight and opening new fronts against Israel,” he said.
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But Eric Brewer, a former Director for Counterproliferation with the National Security Council, said there is a deeper meaning in the message that should trouble Americans.

“You don’t do the types of deployments (and messaging) the administration is doing in the region right now unless you have good reason to worry that Iran/LH/others may escalate,” he posted on X.

You don’t do the types of deployments (and messaging) the administration is doing in the region right now unless you have good reason to worry that Iran/LH/others may escalate. https://t.co/IvgdtzS603

— Eric Brewer (@BrewerEricM) November 6, 2023

The announcement came after the two U.S. carrier strike groups in the region — the USS Gerald R. Ford and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower — conducted exercises in the Mediterranean Sea, Stars and Stripes reported.

The Eisenhower strike group has since moved through the Red Sea, meaning carrier strike groups are now to the west and southeast of Israel.
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Ohio-class submarines can carry Tomahawk cruise missiles or ballistic missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.