The Prophecy is much more than seeing into the future. For the Prophecy sees without the element of time. For the Prophecy sees what is, what was, and what always shall be. 11:11 LLC
By Chris Jewers For Mailonline 17:50 06 Jun 2022, updated 19:57 06 Jun 2022
Vladimir ‘s state television propagandists have unleashed a new rant about launching nuclear weapons in response to Western weapons being sent to Ukraine.
Vladimir Solovyov, also known as ‘Putin’s voice’, said Western deliveries of long-range weapons that could potentially strike into Russian territory means it is only a matter of time before breaks out between and the West.
‘Everything is moving in that direction,’ the host of the Russia1 sabre-rattling talk show ‘Evening Vladimir Solovyov’ told viewers and other pundits in the studio.
The escalating war in Ukraine – which began when Putin launched an invasion of the country on February 24 – meant ‘we’re descending into bloody pages of world history,’ Solovyov said, in a clip shared and translated by Russian Media Monitor.
‘I hope we’ll live through this,’ he said gravely on channel Russia1. ‘If everything keeps progressing the way it is, only a couple of mutants in Lake Baikai will survive. The rest will be destroyed in a massive nuclear strike.
‘Because if NATO decides they can place whatever they want on our borders, they’ll be sending more and more of American weapons to Ukraine, Ukraine will fire and end up hitting one of our nuclear power plants, and here we go,’ he continued, without referencing Russian forces attacking nuclear power stations in Ukraine.
‘The process will quickly become uncontrollable. Everyone will get more than they asked for. Bang! And there’s nothing left,’ he claimed.Vladimir Solovyov (pictured), also known as ‘Putin’s voice’, compared the war to being ‘like a comedy if people weren’t dying’The TV guests regularly take aim at NATO and said Western deliveries of long-range weapons that could potentially strike into Russian territory means it is only a matter of time before nuclear war breaks out between Russia and the WestVitaly Tretyakov, a political analyst, said he was ‘happy’ about the prospect of nuclear war breaking out, suggesting Russia was destined for such a catastrophe
The United States has ruled out sending its own or NATO forces to Ukraine but Washington and Britain have agreed to supply precision missile systems which have significantly longer ranges than previous weapons they delivered.
Washington is supplying Ukraine with M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and Britain will supply M270 multiple-launch systems.
The Russian president placed Moscow’s nuclear forces on high alert shortly after his began February 24, raising fears he could press the button as the war in Ukraine continues to go against him.
And amid increasing Western support to Ukraine, Putin has made thinly veiled threats hinting at a willingness to deploy Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, which Russian military doctrine holds can be used to force an adversary to retreat.
However, the Kremlin has maintained that Russia would only resort to using larger nuclear weapons if it faces an existential threat.
The Russia1 propagandists appeared to consider the delivery of western long-range weapons to be an example of such an existential threat that would justify their use, and seemed to accept the prospect of destruction in a nuclear war.
Vitaly Tretyakov, a political analyst, said he was ‘happy’ about the prospect of nuclear war breaking out, suggesting Russia was destined for such a catastrophe.
‘Yes, we should be happy,’ he said, ‘except the young people may not share this definition of happiness. We’ve finally arrived. This is our last and decisive battle.’
‘We’ve been living with them for years, we know better than you what will happen,’ she said. ‘We’ll be forced to respond, because our people wouldn’t understand if we didn’t. Our boss, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is not the kind of person to put up with this. Frightening escalation awaits us.
‘They’re provoking us again, forgetting the lessons of history that we should not be provoked. You can poke a hibernating bear with a branch, you’re poking him, poking him, poking him, then he wakes up and ‘Whap!” she said, clapping her hands.Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Russia Today (pictured), said ‘I don’t see any other choice’ when talking about Russia using nuclear weapons
Russia has increasingly resorted to nuclear sabre-rattling as the war in Ukraine has stumbled, with state media issuing almost daily threats.
The same show on Russia1 has previously warned that Russian nuclear weapons could wipe out the UK in a ‘nuclear tidal wave’, and has also brazenly simulated how Putin would launch a nuclear strike on three capital cities in Europe.
As Russian troops were building up on Ukraine’s borders before the invasion began, Russia blamed NATO expansion for its increasingly aggressive activities.
And since the start of its invasion, which it calls a ‘special military operation’, Russia has repeatedly said it aims to clear Ukraine of ‘Nazis’.
Kyiv and its Western backers say such claims are fiction and that Ukraine is fighting for its survival against an imperial-style land grab.
Warning was made by Russia despite Russia’s own missiles striking deep into Ukrainian territory. On Sunday, Russia hit targets in Kyiv using long-range missiles fired from the Caspian Sea region, over 850 miles away.
The range of the missile systems being sent to Ukraine to help Kyiv fight against the Russian invasion depends on the munitions used in them.
HIMARS systems have a maximum range of 185 miles or more but the missiles supplied by the United States have a range of just over 40 miles – double the range of the howitzers it supplied.Pictured: Smoke rises over Kyiv on Sunday after Russian missiles hit the Ukrainian capital
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that Ukrainian forces are ‘holding out’ against Moscow’s troops in the eastern city of Severodonetsk but are outnumbered by a ‘stronger’ Russian side.
‘We’re holding out’ but ‘there are more of them and they are stronger,’ he told journalists in Kyiv, adding that Severodonetsk and neighbouring Lysychansk were both ‘dead cities now’.
In the Sunday airstrikes on Kyiv, one person was reported hospitalised. Dark smoke could be seen from many miles away after the attack on two outlying districts.
Ukraine said the strike hit a rail car repair works, while Moscow said it had destroyed tanks sent by Eastern European countries to Ukraine.
Ukraine said Russia had carried out the Kyiv strike using long-range air-launched missiles fired from heavy bombers as far away as the Caspian Sea.
Russia says the strikes are part of a campaign to degrade Ukraine’s military infrastructure and block Western arms shipments.
Putin warned the United States on Sunday that Russia would strike new targets if the West supplied longer-range missiles to Ukraine for use in high-precision mobile rocket systems.
Britain said on Monday it would supply Ukraine with multiple-launch rocket systems that can strike targets up to 50 miles away, a move that was coordinated with the United States in response to Russia’s invasion.
Meanwhile, heavy fighting continues in Sievierodonetsk and Russian forces are pushing towards Sloviansk, which lies about 53 miles to the west, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Monday.
Both sides say they have inflicted huge casualties in Sievierodonetsk.
In Lysychansk, Russian forces fired on a bakery and several administrative and residential buildings, Gaidai said on Monday, adding one civilian had been wounded.
Evacuations resumed from the Ukrainian-held part of Luhansk province on Sunday, and 98 people had escaped, Gaidai said.
The governor of Russia’s western Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, said the border village of Tyotkino had come under fire from Ukraine on Monday morning that targeted a bridge and some businesses.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Ukraine’s military reported that its forces repelled seven attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, destroying four tanks and shooting down a combat helicopter. It was not immediately possible to verify the battlefield reports.
Russia invaded Ukraine in the early hours of February 24, setting off the worst conflict in Europe in decades.
As Russia extends its grip over the east, we look back on 100 days of fighting that has killed tens of thousands of civilians and reduced entire cities to rubble.
February 24: Russia invades – Russian President Vladimir Putin announces a ‘special military operation’ to ‘demilitarise’ and ‘de-Nazify’ the former Soviet state and protect Russian speakers there.
A full-scale invasion starts with air and missile strikes on several cities. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledges to stay in Kyiv to lead the resistance.
February 26: Massive sanctions – West adopts unprecedented sanctions against Russia and offers Ukraine military aid.
Air spaces are closed to Russian aircraft and Russia is kicked out of sporting and cultural events.
February 27: Nuclear threat – Putin puts Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert, in what is seen as a warning to the West not to intervene in Ukraine.
February 28: First talks – During the first peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow, Russia demands recognition of its sovereignty over Crimea, the ‘demilitarisation’ and ‘de-Nazification’ of Ukraine and a guarantee Ukraine will never join NATO. Ukraine demands a complete Russian withdrawal.
March 3: Kherson falls – Russian troops attack Ukraine’s south coast to try to link up territory held by pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine with the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula.
On March 3, Kherson in the south becomes the first city to fall. Russian forces relentlessly shell the port of Mariupol.
March 4: Media crackdown – Russia passes a law punishing what it calls ‘fake news’ about its offensive – such as referring to its ‘special military operation’ as an invasion – with up to 15 years in prison.
March 16: Mariupol theatre razed – Russian air strikes raze a Mariupol theatre killing an estimated 300 people sheltering inside. Moscow blames the attack on Ukraine’s nationalist Azov battalion.
March 16: Zelensky lobbies Congress – Zelensky tells the US Congress to ‘remember Pearl Harbor’ and lobbies Western parliaments for more help.
April 2-3: Horror in Bucha – After a month of fighting, Russia withdraws from northern Ukraine, announcing it will focus its efforts on conquering the eastern Donbas region.
On April 2 and 3, Ukrainians find dozens of corpses of civilians scattered on the street or buried in shallow graves in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, which Russian forces had occupied.
Moscow dismisses accusations of Russian war crimes, saying the images of the bodies are fakes.
April 8: Train station carnage – A rocket attack on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk kills at least 57 civilians being evacuated from Donbas.
April 12: Biden speaks of ‘genocide’ – Biden accuses Russia of ‘genocide’, saying Putin appears intent on ‘trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be a Ukrainian’.
April 14: Flagship sinks – Ukrainian missiles hit and sink Russia’s missile cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea, a major setback for Moscow.
May 11: $40 billion in US aid – US lawmakers back a huge $40-billion package of military, economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
May 16: Kharkiv retreat – Ukraine says its troops have driven Russian forces back from the outskirts of the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, to the Russian border.
May 18: Sweden, Finland apply to NATO – Finland and Sweden apply to join NATO, reversing decades of military non-alignment because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
May 23: First war crimes conviction – A Ukrainian court finds a 21-year-old Russian soldier guilty of war crimes and hands down a life sentence for shooting dead a 62-year-old civilian in northeastern Ukraine in the opening days of the war. He has appealed.
May 21: Battle for Mariupol ends – Russia declares it is in full control of Mariupol after Ukraine ordered troops holding out for weeks in the Azovstal steelworks to lay down their arms to save their lives.
Nearly 2,500 soldiers surrender and are taken prisoner by Russia.
May 30: EU bans most Russian oil – EU leaders overcome resistance from Hungary to agree a partial ban on most Russian oil imports as part of a sixth wave of sanctions.
The deal bans oil imports delivered by tanker but allows landlocked countries such as Hungary to continue receiving Russian oil by pipeline.
May 31: Russia seizes part of eastern city – Russian troops seize part of the key eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk, its governor says. Taking the city would give Russia de-facto control over Lugansk, one of two regions that make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland.
July 3: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its 100th day. Britain’s defence ministry said Moscow has failed to achieve its initial objectives to seize Kyiv and centres of government but is achieving tactical success in the Donbas.
UN’s nuclear watchdog says Iran’s removal of 27 surveillance cameras poses a ‘serious challenge’ to its efforts.
Iran has started to remove 27 surveillance cameras from nuclear sites in the country, according to the the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, who warned that the move could be a near-fatal blow to chances of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal
Grossi said the move poses a “serious challenge” to its efforts, warning that in three to four weeks, it would be unable to maintain a “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s programme.
“This would be a fatal blow” to negotiations over Iran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers, Grossi said. “When we lose this, then it’s anybody’s guess,” he added.
There was no immediate comment from Iran on Grossi’s remarks.
Grossi said that would leave “40 something” cameras still in Iran. The sites that would see cameras removed include its underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, as well as its facility in Isfahan, Grossi said.
“We are in a very tense situation with the negotiations over the [nuclear deal] at a low ebb,” Grossi added. “Now we are adding this to the picture; as you can see it’s not a very nice one.”
Grossi acknowledged that, saying that among the devices being removed was a crucial metre that tracks how high Iran is enriching uranium at Natanz.
Iranian officials had warned of retaliation if the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors passed a resolution drafted by the United States, France, Britain and Germany criticising Tehran for its continued failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.
The resolution, the first to criticise Iran since June 2020, was passed by a large majority late on Thursday. It was approved by 30 of the 35 members of the IAEA board of governors, with only Russia and China voting against it. Tehran condemned the censure motion as “unconstructive”.
Intensifying developmentsEarlier on Thursday, the IAEA said Grossi told members that Iran informed the agency that it planned to install two new cascades of the IR-6 at Natanz. A cascade is a series of centrifuges hooked together to rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it.An IR-6 centrifuge spins uranium 10 times as fast as the first-generation centrifuges that Iran was once limited to under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.As of February, Iran had already been spinning a cascade of IR-6s at its underground facility at Fordo, according to the IAEA.At Natanz, located some 200km (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran, Iran earlier said it planned to install one cascade of IR-6s.The IAEA said it “verified” the ongoing installation of that cascade on Monday, while the newly promised two new cascades had yet to begin.Iran and world powers agreed in 2015 to the nuclear deal, which saw Tehran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the accord, raising tensions across the wider Middle East and sparking a series of attacks and incidents.Talks in Vienna over Iran’s tattered nuclear deal have been stalled since April. Since the deal’s collapse, Iran runs advanced centrifuges and has a rapidly growing stockpile of enriched uranium.Nonproliferation experts warn Iran has enriched enough up to 60 percent purity — a short technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent — to make one nuclear weapon should it decide to do so.Iran insists its programme is for peaceful purposes, though UN experts and Western intelligence agencies say Iran had an organised military nuclear programme through 2003.Building a nuclear bomb would still take Iran more time if it pursued a weapon, analysts say, though they warn Tehran’s advances make the programme more dangerous.Israel has threatened in the past that it would carry out a preemptive strike to stop Iran — and is already suspected by Tehran in a series of killings targeting Iranian officials.Iran has been holding footage from IAEA surveillance cameras since February 2021 as a pressure tactic to restore the atomic accord.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Leader of the Sadrist Movement Muqtada al-Sadr urged his bloc’s MPs to have their resignation papers ready for submission as the prominent cleric warns of resigning from the legislature with government formation stalled.
Sadr in a televised address threatened to resign from the Iraqi parliament “in the coming days,” ordering his bloc’s members to “prepare their resignation papers to submit to the parliament presidency in the coming days,” following many attempts by the top cleric to form a government that ultimately led to no avail.
His attempts have been repeatedly disrupted by the Coordination Framework, an Iran-backed Shiite alliance, and his main rival in the quest to form a government. The Coordination Framework boycotted parliamentary sessions initiated by the tripartite alliance – consisting of the Sadrist bloc, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance – on several occasions through boycotts.
“We are trying to reform and we will not support corrupt people,” he added, saying “the solution is only a national majority government and reform can only be achieved through a national majority government.”
Sadr’s attempts to form a national majority government have been opposed by the Coordination Framework, who insists on forming a more traditional government based on political consensus.
In May, the influential cleric ruled out the possibility of striking a deal with the Coordination Framework, accusing Iraq’s politicians of having “become an example of corruption and vice.”
With the gap between Iraq’s rivaling political blocs wider than ever, the caretaker government’s deprivation of passing proper, long-term decisions to stabilize various sectors of the country and address broad issues continues to have detrimental effects on the country.
Published: 09 June ,2022: 07:24 PM GSTUpdated: 09 June ,2022: 07:33 PM GST
Populist Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr made a high-stakes protest Thursday by calling on the 73 lawmakers loyal to him to ready resignation papers to end an eight-month parliamentary paralysis.
Parliament in Baghdad has been in turmoil since October’s general election, and intense negotiations among political factions have failed to forge a majority in support of a new prime minister to succeed Mustafa al-Kadhemi.
Iraqi lawmakers have already exceeded all deadlines for setting up a new government set down in the constitution, prolonging the war-scarred country’s political crisis.
“If the survival of the Sadrist bloc is an obstacle to the formation of the government, then all representatives of the bloc are ready to resign from parliament,” al- Sadr said in a televised statement.
Al-Sadr called on his lawmakers to “write their resignation,” warning that “they won’t disobey me.”
“Iraq needs a government backed by a majority that serves the people,” al-Sadr said.
Al-Sadr has said he wants all Shia forces to be involved in a “consensus government.”
While al-Sadr counts on the direct loyalty of 73 lawmakers, his wider bloc also includes Sunni lawmakers from the party of parliamentary speaker Mohammed Halbusi and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
But the grand total of al-Sadr’s bloc of 155 still falls short of the absolute majority needed in the 329-member parliament.
Al-Sadr’s move puts the onus for forming a government on the 83 lawmakers of the rival Coordination Framework, which draws lawmakers from former premier Nuri al-Maliki’s party and the pro-Iran Fatah Alliance, the political arm of the former paramilitary group the Popular Mobilization Unit (PMU), (Hashed-al-Shaabi).
Lawmakers have already failed three times to elect a new national president, the first key stage before naming a prime minister and the subsequent establishment of a government.
If the parliamentary impasse cannot be broken, new elections could follow – but that would itself require lawmakers to agree on dissolving parliament.
Vladimir Solovyov, popularly known as ‘Putin’s voice,’ claims that Western delivery of long-range weapons capable of striking Russian territory mean that nuclear conflict between Russia and the West is only a matter of time.
‘Everything is headed in that direction,’ said Vladimir Solovyov, the host of Russia1’s sabre-rattling talk show ‘Evening Vladimir Solovyov.’
‘We’re sliding into gory chapters of international history,’ Solovyov said in a recording posted and translated by Russian Media Monitor, referring to the intensifying war in Ukraine, which began when Putin launched an invasion of the country on February 24.
‘I hope we’ll make it through this,’ he remarked solemnly on Russia1 channel. ‘If things continue to go as they are, just a few mutants in Lake Baikai will live.’ The remainder will be obliterated in a huge nuclear attack.
Because if NATO decides they can put whatever they want on our borders, they’ll be sending more and more American weapons to Ukraine, Ukraine will fire and end up hitting one of our nuclear power plants, and there we are,’ he continued, without mentioning Russian forces attacking Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
‘The situation will swiftly spiral out of control.’ Everyone will receive more than they requested. Bang! ‘There’s nothing left,’ he asserted.
Although the US has ruled out sending its own or NATO forces to Ukraine, the US and the UK have agreed to equip precision missile systems with substantially larger ranges than prior weaponry.
Ukraine will receive M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, from the United States, and M270 multiple-launch systems from the United Kingdom.
Shortly after his invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin placed Moscow’s nuclear forces on high alert, prompting fears that he would press the button if the battle in Ukraine continues to go against him.Putin has also issued thinly disguised threats, implying a willingness to deploy Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, which Russian military doctrine claims can be used to force an adversary to retreat, as Western support for Ukraine grows.
The Kremlin, on the other hand, has stated that Russia would only use heavier nuclear weapons if it faced an existential danger.
The delivery of western long-range missiles appeared to the Russian propagandists to be an example of such an existential threat that would justify their use, and they seemed to accept the thought of destruction in a nuclear war.
Because if NATO decides they can put whatever they want on our borders, they’ll be sending more and more American weapons to Ukraine, Ukraine will fire and end up hitting one of our nuclear power plants, and there we are,’ he continued, without mentioning Russian forces attacking Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
‘The situation will swiftly spiral out of control.’ Everyone will receive more than they requested. Bang! ‘There’s nothing left,’ he asserted.
We’ve been living with them for years, and we know what will happen better than you,’ she explained. ‘We’ll have no choice but to reply because our people will not understand if we don’t.’ Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, our boss, is not the type to put up with this. We’re in for a terrifying escalation.
‘They’re baiting us yet again, ignoring history’s lessons that we shouldn’t be provoked.’ You may poke a hibernating bear with a branch, poking him, poking him, poking him, and then he wakes up and ‘Whap!’ she exclaimed, her hands clapping.
As the conflict in Ukraine has stalled, Russia has turned to nuclear bluster, with state media repeating threats on a regular basis.
The same show on Russia1 has previously claimed that Russian nuclear weapons might wipe out the UK in a ‘nuclear tidal wave,’ and has also mocked Putin’s nuclear strike on three European major cities.
Russia blamed NATO expansion for its increasingly aggressive operations as Russian forces built up on Ukraine’s borders prior to the invasion.
Since the beginning of its invasion, which it refers to as a “special military operation,” Russia has stated repeatedly that its goal is to rid Ukraine of “Nazis.”
Such allegations, according to Kyiv and its Western sponsors, are false, and Ukraine is fighting for its life against an imperial-style territory grab.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened the US that if the West gave Ukraine with longer-range missiles for use in high-precision mobile rocket launchers, Russia would hit new targets.
Despite its own missiles striking deep into Ukrainian territory, Russia issued a warning. Russia used long-range missiles fired from the Caspian Sea region to strike targets in Kyiv on Sunday.
The munitions used in the missile systems being deployed to Ukraine to assist Kyiv in fighting the Russian incursion determine their range.
HIMARS systems have a maximum range of 185 miles or more, but the missiles supplied by the US had a range of slightly over 40 miles, which is more than double that of the howitzers it provided.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Monday that Ukrainian forces are ‘holding out’ in the eastern city of Severodonetsk against Russian troops, despite being outmanned by a’stronger’ Russian force.
‘We’re holding out,’ he told media in Kyiv, but ‘there are more of them, and they’re stronger,’ adding that Severodonetsk and neighboring Lysychansk were both ‘dead cities now.’
One person was reported to have been hospitalized as a result of the airstrikes on Kyiv on Sunday. After the attack on two remote districts, dark smoke could be seen for kilometers.
Ukraine said the strike targeted a train car repair facility, while Russia claimed it destroyed tanks delivered to Ukraine by Eastern European countries.
Ukraine said that Russia used long-range air-launched missiles fired from heavy bombers as far away as the Caspian Sea to carry out the Kyiv strike.
The strikes, according to Russia, are part of a strategy to damage Ukraine’s military infrastructure and prevent Western weaponry shipments from entering the country.
Putin threatened the US on Sunday that if the West gave Ukraine with longer-range missiles for use in high-precision mobile rocket launchers, Russia would strike new targets.
In response to Russia’s invasion, Britain announced on Monday that it will equip Ukraine with multiple-launch rocket systems capable of striking targets up to 50 miles away, in a move coordinated with the US.
Meanwhile, severe battle continues in Sievierodonetsk, and Russian forces are pressing westward towards Sloviansk, roughly 53 miles away, according to the British Ministry of Defence.
Both sides claim to have killed a large number of people in Sievierodonetsk.
According to Gaidai, Russian soldiers shot on a bakery and other governmental and residential buildings in Lysychansk on Monday, injuring one civilian.
On Sunday, evacuations from the Ukrainian-controlled sector of Luhansk region continued, with 98 individuals escaping, according to Gaidai.
According to Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russia’s western Kursk district, the border settlement of Tyotkino was hit by Ukrainian artillery on Monday morning, which targeted a bridge and some businesses.
There were no reports of casualties right away.
Ukraine’s military reported that its forces repelled seven attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Sunday, destroying four tanks and shooting down a combat helicopter. It was not immediately possible to verify the battlefield reports
Israel’s occupation and discrimination against Palestinians are the main causes of the endless cycles of violence, UN investigators said Tuesday, prompting angry Israeli protests.
“Ending the occupation of lands by Israel… remains essential in ending the persistent cycles of violence,” they said in a report, decrying ample evidence that Israel has “no intention” of doing so.
The 18-page report mainly focuses on evaluating a long line of past UN investigations, reports and rulings on the situation, and how and if those findings were implemented.
Recommendations in past reports were “overwhelmingly directed towards Israel,” lead investigator Navi Pillay, a former UN rights chief from South Africa, said in a statement.
This, she said, was “an indicator of the asymmetrical nature of the conflict and the reality of one state occupying the other”.
The investigators also determined that those recommendations “have overwhelmingly not been implemented”, she said, pointing to calls to ensure accountability for Israel’s violations of international law but also “indiscriminate firing of rockets” by Palestinian armed groups into Israel.
“It is this lack of implementation coupled with a sense of impunity, clear evidence that Israel has no intention of ending the occupation, and the persistent discrimination against Palestinians that lies at the heart of the systematic recurrence of violations in both the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.”
– ‘Witch hunt’ –
Israel has refused to cooperate with the Commission of Inquiry (COI) created last year following the 11-day Hamas-Israel war in May 2021, which killed 260 Palestinians and 13 people on the Israeli side.
The report, it said, was “one-sided” and “tainted with hatred for the State of Israel and based on a long series of previous one-sided and biased reports.”
It had been published, it said, as “the result of the Human Rights Council’s extreme anti-Israel bias.”
The United States, a staunch ally of Israel — which rejoined the Council under President Joe Biden, after Donald Trump withdrew from the body — reiterated that it “firmly” opposes the “open-ended and vaguely defined nature” of the COI.
“The existence of this COI in its current form is a continuation of a long-standing pattern of unfairly singling out Israel,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
In Geneva, dozens of Israeli reserve soldiers and students — some of them dressed like Palestinian Hamas militants — marched Tuesday outside the UN headquarters in protest.
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who heads the Israeli NGO Shurat Hadin that organised the protest, slammed the rights council as “the most anti-Semitic body in the world.”
Israel and its allies have long accused the top UN rights body of anti-Israel bias, pointing among other things to the fact that Israel is the only country that is systematically discussed at every regular council session, with a dedicated special agenda item.
The COI, which is the highest-level investigation that can be ordered by the council, is the ninth probe it has ordered into rights violations in Palestinian territories.
It is the first, however, tasked with looking at systematic abuses committed within Israel, the first open-ended probe, and the first to examine “root causes” in the drawn-out conflict.
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