US Bernie Sanders says after losing lost vote to block arms for Israel: US is ‘funding starvation of children in Gaza’
The Senate voted down on Wednesday a long-shot effort by US Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont) and a handful of Democrats to block the sales of offensive weapons to Israel, amid a worsening humanitarian crisis in the northern Gaza Strip. Sanders’s bid to halt the sale of tank rounds, mortar rounds...
US Congress comes under scrutiny for muzzling legislators who queried bid to hide true Gaza death toll
The legislation comes shortly after Amnesty International declared that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, noting as a factor in their decision the immense death toll in the besieged Strip. In the first year of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, the military had killed 44,835 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry.
Palestinian detainees freed from Israeli prisons and camps tell of horrendous abuses and psychological harm
Alleged abuses and psychological harm to Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons and camps are in renewed focus amid stepped-up efforts in December by international mediators to secure a ceasefire that could see the release of thousands of inmates detained during the Gaza war and before, in return for Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza.
Experts: Famine redefinition unlikely to ease assistance mobilisation to Gaza
The IPC famine thresholds require specific assessments: of mortality, of the percentage of households facing an extreme lack of food and of the percentage of malnourished children.
Human suffering in Gaza is immense but hunger watchdog refrains from describing the acute food shortage as famine
Most days, Shay said he treated on average 40 new patients who were admitted to the hospital. Many had severe cases of pneumonia, and several others suffered from meningitis, an illness that can kill in hours. Newborns were often small for their age, he said.
Western official and Iran officials says the ME nation’s Revolutionary Guards are tightening control over Tehran’s oil exports
Six specialists – Western officials and security experts as well as Iranian and trading sources – said the Guards control up to 50 per cent of Iran’s oil exports, a sharp increase from about 20 per cen three years ago. The sources declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Mass graves sites in Syria expose ousted President Assad’s ‘machinery of deat’ with about 100,00 killed
An international war crimes prosecutor said on Tuesday that evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run “machinery of death” under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013. Speaking after visiting two mass grave sites...
Assad: As terrorist forces infiltrated Damascus, I moved to Latakia but with no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested evacuation to Russia
The Kremlin said on December 9 that President Vladimir Putin had made the decision to grant Assad asylum in Russia, which deployed its airforce to Syria in 2015 to help him repel rebel forces.
Syrian Christians attend Sunday services in test of Islamist rulers’ promise to protect minorities
In the coastal city of Latakia, long an Assad stronghold, Lina Akhras, a parish council secretary at the St George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, said on Sunday that Christians had been “comfortable” under his rule in terms of freedom of belief but that they just wanted to live in peace and harmony.
Missing American Austin Tice still can’t be traced among thousands of prisoners freed by Syrian rebels
When Ausitn Tice escaped, he was spotted by people living in the Mazzeh neighbourhood, wandering the street. He entered the house of a well-known Syrian family, the name of which is being withheld for security reasons, a person familiar with the escape said. Tice was recaptured soon after his escape, one current and one former US official said.
