Israel’s assault on Gaza, as well as the escalation of violence by Israeli settlers in the long-occupied West Bank, is, or should be, a wake-up call.

More than 11,000 Palestinians, including some 4,650 children, have now been killed in a war started in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks which themselves claimed around 1,200 lives.

A halfway even-handed international community would have to step in and protect the victims of the disproportionate Israeli retaliation, which multiple international voices have called a genocide and an ethnic cleansing. Failure to do so reveals profound bias and dysfunction. That much is obvious.

A blistering exposé from The Washington Post is casting new aspersions on the oversight — or lack thereof — stemming from President Joe Biden’s administration.

“Forbidden Russian oil flows into the Pentagon supply chain,” the ominous, exclusive report warned readers right off the bat.

A US military base in the occupied part of northeastern Syria came under a drone attack that injured a service member, media reported Saturday.

The base is located in Tel Baidar in the eastern Syrian province of Hasaka, Beirut-based Al Mayadeen reported.

The United States has set up 24 military bases and four outposts in Syria despite protests from the Syrian government.

Patients from the Shifa hospital in northern Gaza will be transported to hospitals located in the southern part of the enclave within the next 24-72 hours, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.

On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it had allowed a number of people to evacuate from the Shifa hospital via a safe route, adding that medical personnel would remain at the facility to assist patients who are unable to evacuate.

"Over the next 24–72 hours, pending guarantees of safe passage by parties to the conflict, additional missions are being arranged to urgently transport patients from Al-Shifa to Nasser Medical Complex and European Gaza Hospital in the south of Gaza," the WHO said on X.

Israeli military and civilian leadership are locked in a debate “at the highest levels” about what next steps to take in Gaza, the Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the discussion.

The options reportedly include expanding the ongoing military operation into the southern part of the Palestinian enclave or reaching an interim deal with the Hamas militant group, exchanging at least some Israeli hostages for a pause in hostilities or the release of Palestinian prisoners.

According to the newspaper, even the possibility that Israel and Hamas might be close to some sort of deal “may currently be slowing the push into southern Gaza.”

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) reported on Friday that over 800,000 Palestinians remain in the besieged Gaza City and northern areas, despite ongoing Israeli destructive ground operations, Anadolu Agency reports.

The PCBS said in a statement that this figure indicates that “two-thirds of the population of the northern governorates still reside in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip.”

It noted that Palestinians decided to stay in the northern parts of the enclave.

A number of hospitals were surrounded and at least three people killed as Israeli forces launched a major raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

The attacks, launched overnight and lasting into Friday, also left at least 14 others injured, according to Palestinian sources. The raid ended after several hours.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, led 11 members of the Senate Banking and Housing Committee in calling for an independent investigation into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) after reports that the agency has failed to fix a toxic culture of sexual harassment and misconduct, discrimination, and misogyny.

About 200 people have been killed in an Israeli strike on the Al-Fakhoora school in Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip, the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera reported.

The bombed school has been controlled by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Numerous civilians, who were forced to flee their homes fearing Israeli bombardments, sought shelter at the school.

An Israeli strike on a building in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Saturday has killed 32 people from the same family, a health ministry official told AFP.

The health ministry released a list of 32 members of the Abu Habal family who were killed in the attack. Nineteen of them were children.

That means that more than 80 people were killed on Saturday in two separate Israeli strikes on Jabalia refugee camp.

Israel's investigation into the Hamas movement's 7 October attack has determined that the group likely did not know about the music festival that was targeted before the attack was launched. 

Investigators said that the target for Hamas' attack seemed to be a Kibbutz, but changed plans once the festival was discovered, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on Saturday. 

In addition, the investigation found that an Israeli army helicopter that arrived on the scene following the attack was responsible for at least some of the deaths, as the helicopter mistakenly shot festival goers instead of Hamas operatives. 

Ankara uses diplomatic means to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip, but may opt for other ways if these efforts fail, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said.

"We are now employing diplomatic means to break the [Gaza] blockade. Unless these methods work, there are other ways," he said in an interview with the Al Jazeera television channel.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi rejected on Saturday the idea that Arab troops could enter the Gaza Strip to "clean up the mess" created by the Israeli invasion.

"Speaking on behalf of Jordan but having discussed this issue with almost all our brethren, there will be no Arab troops going to Gaza. None. We are not going to be seen as the enemy," Safadi said at a regional security forum underway in Bahrain.

Addressing the plenary of the IISS Manama Dialogue, the Jordanian diplomat stressed that the destruction of Gaza had to stop before the international community could discuss its future.

"How can anyone talk about the future of Gaza when we do not known what kind of Gaza will be left once this aggression ends ... By entertaining that, we are telling the Israeli government: ‘Do whatever you want. Go destroy Gaza. No one is stopping you. And once you are done we will clean up your mess.’ No, we will not," Safadi said.

The gray outline of a Marine V-22 Osprey drops out of the sky to take up position beside the flight deck of Britain's biggest aircraft carrier.

With a spotter hanging from its open doorway, the American test pilot swings the tail of the aircraft around and lowers it vertically to a pin point landing in the rear corner of the H.M.S. Prince of Wales.

The flight deck already bears the scorch marks from dozens of landings by F-35 fighter jets from weeks of testing.

A day earlier, a Mojave unmanned aircraft took off and landed — the largest drone ever to fly from a European ship.

This is the future of maritime warfare. Two allies with interchangeable hardware working together to extend their range and capabilities.

Türkiye will ask international inspectors to determine whether Israel has nuclear weapons, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday. 

Speaking to reporters on his flight home from Germany, the Turkish leader noted that Israel is among the few countries that are not parties to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Erdogan said Ankara would ask the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate whether the Jewish state has a nuclear arsenal.

A disheartening new poll conducted by the Echelon Insights research institute purports to show that 72% of American voters would not be willing to volunteer to fight for their country if the United States faced a major conflict.

The poll of 1,029 likely voters, obtained by Newsweek, was conducted October 23-26, in the days following the heinous Hamas terror attacks against Israel on October 7.

That the overwhelming majority of U.S. adults apparently would not be willing to serve in the United States military if the country faced another major war is concerning to say the least, especially given extreme tensions in the Middle East and surrounding Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea, the modern day Axis of Evil.

The resolution, HR31- C, calls “for an immediate de-escalation & ceasefire in Israel & occupied Palestine, supporting protection of constitutional rights of Floridians, & advocating for dignity & safety of residents in every community.” 

It was only backed by Nixon and Rep. Anna Eskamani. During the tension-filled House special session, lawmakers weighed in, including Rep. Randy Fine, who is Jewish, stating, “If you vote for this, you’re an anti-Semite.”

  Of course, you already sense that the 2024 election will be a freaky event, if it happens at all. If it’s not America’s last election altogether, it may be the last one that follows the traditional format that has signified stability in our country’s high tide as a great power: that is, a contest between Republicans and Democrats. Both parties are likely to crash and burn in the year ahead, along with a whole lot of other things on the tottering scaffold of normal life.

     Have you lost count yet of the number of things in our country that are broken? The justice system. Public safety. Education. Medicine. Money. Transportation. Housing. The food supply. The border. The News business. The arts. Our relations with other countries. That’s just the big institutional stuff.  At the personal scale it’s an overwhelming plunge in living standards, loss of incomes, careers, chattels, liberties. . .  poor health (especially mental health). . . and failing confidence in any plausible future.

     The reasons behind all that failure and loss are pretty straightforward. The business model for operating a high-tech industrial economy is broken. That includes especially the business model for affordable energy: oil, gas, nuclear, and the electric grid that runs on all that. We opted out of an economy that produced things of real value. We replaced that with a financial matrix of banking fakery. That racket made a very few people supernaturally wealthy while incrementally dissolving the middle-class. We destroyed local and regional business and scaled up what was left into super-giant predatory companies that can no longer maintain their supply chains. Fragility everywhere in everything.

April 15 is celebrated as Electronic Warfare (EW) Specialist Day in Russia. Technology is in active development today and new systems are designed for warfare on the ground, in the air and at sea. Last year, the Russian Army started testing integral parts of a ground-based electronic warfare system capable of defending troops and civil facilities against aerospace attacks.

An electronic warfare system is a major element of the military organization of a state and an integral part of all armed conflicts of the past few years and has proven its efficiency in the Russian air task force’s operation in Syria.

The offshore wind industry has seen several major setbacks since the summer—auctions in the U.S. and the UK were a flop and a large UK project was canceled due to surging costs and challenging market conditions pressuring new developments. Meanwhile, developers in the U.S. are seeking looser requirements for tax credits to make projects economically feasible. In addition, Siemens Energy is reviewing the scope of activities at its wind turbine-making unit, Siemens Gamesa, as quality issues, rising costs, and ramp-up challenges in the wind business dragged the company into a net loss of $5 billion for the 2023 fiscal year.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has sounded the alarm about the prospects of Western support to the Kiev regime decreasing, telling media that Ukrainian troops might be forced into a retreat without US and NATO backing.

Ukrainian President Zelensky has drawn attention to reducing Western support as Washington’s attention is increasingly focused on the Middle East and the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A recent stopgap funding bill signed by the POTUS contains no provisions for further assistance to Ukraine.

Zelensky's words appears to be “both symbolic and real,” as Ukraine’s “hopes of victory, that were already dim, would falter in oblivion” if the constant flow of weapons and munitions to Kiev from the West were to cease, argued Jacques Sapir, a director at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris.

"Netanyahu is done. We are getting rid of him. Israel will get rid of him and all the Jews from all over the world will get rid of him. Now 60-70% of the people in his country are protesting against Netanyahu, since he is getting both his own country and the whole world to pay a heavy price. Now everyone is sending him weapons and money, but this situation makes the countries that support him pay the price," Erdogan said, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.

Yana Abukhadzharas, who was evacuated from the Gaza Strip to Moscow, told TASS about bombings near the Rafah checkpoint where evacuees have been crossing into of late.

"It’s very scary and dangerous out there. We saw a bomb flying and hitting a house as we sat [at the border crossing]. Ordinary people, just like you and me, are getting killed - families, children, grandparents," she said.

According to her, the Russian embassy has been trying to reach Russians, calling their local numbers, despite phones being cut off in the Palestinian enclave. While she chose to evacuate, her husband stayed behind to help his elderly parents, Abukhadzharas said. The woman and her two small kids spent 18 hours on the border, while they bordered their flight within 90 minutes upon arrival in Cairo.

The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, Hezbollah, on Friday, carried out qualitative operations targeting gatherings of Israeli occupation soldiers in about seven sites, within the battle of the “Al-Aqsa flood” in southern Lebanon on the Palestinian border.

In successive statements this evening, Hezbollah said that its fighters targeted gatherings of the Israeli occupation soldiers in each of “ the Triangle of Al-Tayhat,  the Al-Marj site, the Ramim barracks (in the occupied Lebanese village of Hounin),  the Al-Malikiya site, the settlement of “Yar’oun” (the occupied Lebanese village of Salha), and the Dhairah site,”  achieving direct hits.

According to Hezbollah’s statements, these operations come “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their brave and honorable resistance.”

Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, destroyed 10 armored vehicles the Zionist enemy in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement this morning, Al-Quds brigades explained that in separate operations, our fighters target seven enemy military vehicles in Tel Al-Hawa and Al-Sabra, southwest of Gaza City.

“During last night’s clashes, our fighters were able to destroy two tanks and an “Israeli” bulldozer with “Tandem” and RPG shells in Beit Hanoun and west of Beit Lahia,” according to the statement.

Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas armed wing, on Friday,  released a video of targeting the Israeli occupation forces infiltrating Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of people fled on foot Saturday after Israel’s army ordered the evacuation of Gaza’s main hospital where more than 2,000 patients, medics and displaced people were trapped by the war between Israel and Hamas.

An AFP journalist witnessed the movement, on a road leading south, but health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory said 450 patients unable to be moved remained at Al-Shifa hospital. The facility has become the focus of the war that is entering its seventh week after Hamas’s October 7 attacks on southern Israel.
Israel has been pressing military operations inside the hospital, searching for the Hamas operations center it says lies under the sprawling complex — a charge Hamas denies.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to the October 7 attacks which Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and saw about 240 people taken hostage.
The army’s air and ground campaign has since killed 12,000 people, including 5,000 children, according to the Hamas government which has ruled Gaza since 2007.

The policy being pursued by Washington in Ukraine and the Middle East would bring progress and make the United States more secure, US President Joe Biden said in his article for The Washington Post.

According to Biden, against the backdrop of "so much violence and suffering - in Ukraine, Israel, [the] Gaza [Strip] and so many other places - it can be difficult to imagine that something different is possible." "We must never forget the lesson learned time and again throughout our history: Out of great tragedy and upheaval, enormous progress can come," he maintained.

Webmaster addition: BULL BISCUITS! What did you get out of Afghanistan, Joe?

The Houthis (Ansar Allah) in Yemen are about to begin attacks against Israeli ships sailing in the Red Sea and other waters in support of the Gaza Strip, the Al-Mayadeen TV reported on November 18, citing a Yemeni military official.

The unnamed official told the Lebanon-based news channel that Israeli ships will be targeted regardless of whether they are heading to “occupied Palestine” or not.

“The Yemeni armed forces are capable of targeting any Israeli ship, whether in the Red Sea or any other place that the enemy does not expect,” the official said.

The Houthis, who control much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, are part of the so-called “Axis of Resistance” which is backed by Iran and opposes Israel. Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, the Houthis have been launching attacks with missiles and drones against Israel.

Earlier this week, the Houthis vowed to target Israeli ships sailing close to Yemen after announcing two attacks against Israel.

On the night of November 18, Russian forces launched another wave of massive strikes on Ukrainian military and industrial facilities throughout the country. The Russian Defense Ministry reported the destruction of ammunition depots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions.

The Russian military rarely acknowledges strikes on Ukrainian industrial facilities, which serve the need of the Ukrainian military. According to unofficial Ukrainian reports, Russian forces launched combined strikes on the facilities of the AFU in the ports of Odessa and Mykolaiv regions. Explosions thundered in the area of the airfield of Starokonstantinov in the Khmelnitsky region. More attack were reported in the Chernihiv region.

Local media reported the work of air defense in Kiev but did not reveal the target. The local officials also did not confirm any damage as a result of the Russian attack on the capital. However, according to the Russian military, they reached the ammo depot that they targeted.