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Health

Best of the Web: Israeli media's 'conservative' estimate: Palestinian resistance in Gaza has wounded 'many thousands' of Israeli soldiers


Middle East Eye
Fri, 05 Jan 2024 13:22 UTC
Israel Army injured gaza
Yediot Ahronoth finds defence ministry's assessment of total wounded soldiers is much higher than published figures

At least 12,500 Israeli soldiers are predicted to be recognised as "disabled" due to the fighting in Gaza, Israeli outlet Yediot Ahronoth reported on Friday.

The "gloomy forecast", as it described, was presented by a company hired by Israel's defence ministry to conduct an assessment of injuries among troops.

The 12,500 figure is a conservative and cautious estimate. The number of cases requesting disability recognition could reach 20,000, the report said.

The defence ministry's rehabilitation department is currently treating 60,000 disabled Israeli soldiers.

Comment: Like the poor unfortunate Itzik Saidian, the IDF is going up in flames. This must be why, at least in part, Israel is pulling so many troops out of Gaza. What a clusterf*ck.

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Cult

Flashback Former senior Democratic Senator George Mitchell denies contact with Epstein victim Virginia Roberts-Giuffre

Eric Russell
Press Herald
Fri, 09 Aug 2019 11:58 UTC
george mitchell bill clinton
"Bill, really, you shouldn't have!"
A woman who said she was kept as a sex slave for financier Jeffrey Epstein named Mitchell among a group of powerful men she said Epstein 'instructed her to go to.'

Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell of Maine flatly denied allegations contained in court documents unsealed Friday that he had contact with a woman who said she was kept as a sex slave by financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, in a 2016 deposition, named Mitchell among a group of powerful men to whom she said Epstein offered her for erotic massages and sex. Others who were named include former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Britain's Prince Andrew, financier Glenn Dubin, former MIT scientist Marvin Minsky and Jean-Luc Brunel, a well-known modeling agent.

In a statement Friday to the Press Herald, Mitchell said the allegations are false.

Comment: Senator for Maine, eh? For what it's worth, a stopover in Maine shows up in Epstein's Lolita Express flight logs, in early 2001:



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Bizarro Earth

2024: The year global government takes shape

Kit Knightly
Off-Guardian
Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00 UTC
globalists
Global government is the endgame. We know that.

Total control of every aspect of life for every single person on the planet, that's the goal.

That's been apparent to anyone paying attention for years, if not decades, and any tiny portion of remaining doubt was removed when Covid was rolled-out and members of the establishment started outright saying it.

Covid marked an acceleration of the globalist agenda, a mad dash to the finish line that seems to have lost momentum short of victory, but the race is still going. The goal has not changed, even if the years since may have seen the agenda retreat slightly back into the shadows.

We know what they want conceptually, but what does that mean practically?

What does a potential "global government" actually look like?
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X

The Supreme Court will decide if Donald Trump can be kept off 2024 presidential ballots

Mark Sherman and Nicholas Riccardi
AP
Sat, 06 Jan 2024 01:43 UTC
supreme court
The U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court said Friday it will decide whether former President Donald Trump can be kept off the ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, inserting the court squarely in the 2024 presidential campaign.

The justices acknowledged the need to reach a decision quickly, as voters will soon begin casting presidential primary ballots across the country. The court agreed to take up Trump's appeal of a case from Colorado stemming from his role in the events that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Underscoring the urgency, arguments will be held on Feb. 8, during what is normally a nearly monthlong winter break for the justices. The compressed timeframe could allow the court to produce a decision before Super Tuesday on March 5, when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs in a single day, including in Colorado.

Comment: When they start pulling out obscure rules to try to bar an opponent from the ballot, you know they're getting desperate. No matter what the Supreme Court decides, we can see that this is nothing more than the latest in a long stream of underhanded ways the establishment is trying to prevent Trump from attaining the presidency.

See also:

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Footprints

Israel partially withdraws from Gaza after 'listening' to US - Politico


RT
Thu, 04 Jan 2024 10:54 UTC
soldiers
© Gil Cohen-MagenAFPIsraeli soldiers walking past damaged buildings during a military operation • North Gaza Strip
Israel's withdrawal of troops from Gaza indicates that it is "listening" to Washington, which has long urged West Jerusalem to shift to low-intensity military operations, Politico reported Wednesday.

It comes after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced last weekend that it would withdraw five brigades from combat in Gaza, comprising thousands of soldiers.

The IDF's decision to reduce its troop presence in the Palestinian enclave is seen as "a signal that Israel is beginning to finally shift away from large-scale bombing and more toward targeted, surgical strikes on senior Hamas leaders," as Washington has repeatedly urged, amid a rising civilian death toll among Gazans, Politico reported, citing unnamed US officials.

"What we're seeing is the beginning of a transition," one official said, while another added that Washington was "pleased to see the shift" but wished it had happened much sooner, according to the outlet.

The killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri by a drone attack in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday could be "another sign Israel is ready to shift to more surgical operations," Politico's source said.

Comment: Misery loves company: Munitions dwindling, IDF losses, global opinion flushed down the toilet? Time to throw Washington a bone...but not a big one:
The White House is worried that the conflict in Gaza could expand to other parts of the Middle East and is drawing up plans for a possible US response if that happens, Politico reported.

Internal discussions are underway in the administration of US President Joe Biden about scenarios that could see Washington drawn into a major war in the region, the outlet said in an article on Thursday. The potential for a wider conflict in the Middle East is growing, said sources including a senior Biden administration official.

"The events of the past few days have convinced some in the administration that the war in Gaza has officially escalated far beyond the strip's borders."
These events included a US drone strike in Baghdad that killed Iraqi militia leader Mushtaq Taleb al-Saidi, the killing of Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri in an Israeli UAV attack in the Lebanese capital Beirut, and twin explosions in Iran that claimed 84 lives and wounded almost 300 people.
The intelligence community is trying to find ways of anticipating and resisting the attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria by local militias. It's also working to determine whether the Houthis would carry out similar strikes, the report read.

Such contingency planning is routine amid heightened tension in the Middle East, officials said. But this activity has intensified this week on orders from the top echelons of the administration "over fears that the violence in the region will only continue to grow and that Washington will eventually have to intervene."

Politico stressed that rising tensions in the Middle East "are perilous not just for regional security, but for Biden's re-election chances." The president, who planned to focus his campaign on domestic issues, instead "ends his first term as the West's champion for the defense of Ukraine and key enabler of Israel's retaliation against Hamas."


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Eiffel Tower

Medvedev labels French diplomats 'scum, bastards, freaks'


RT
Wed, 03 Jan 2024 23:07 UTC
Medvedev
© Ekaterina Shtukina/SputnikFormer President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev
The ex-president responded to Paris describing the Belgorod carnage as Ukrainian "self-defense"...

The French Foreign Ministry has justified Russia's historic dislike of France by declaring the Ukrainian massacre of civilians in Belgorod to be self-defense, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev claimed on Wednesday.

Ukrainian artillery struck the central square of the Russian city with cluster bombs on Saturday, injuring over 100 civilians and killing 25, including children.

Asked about it on Wednesday morning, a spokesman of the Foreign Ministry in Paris said that Ukraine was "acting in self-defense" while Russia was "an aggressor state" responsible for any "human tragedies that accompany" the conflict.

In a Telegram post, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte's ill-fated 1812 invasion, Medvedev said:
"We never liked the French. The frogs fought a war against us. Now we are convinced of this. The French Foreign Ministry said that the strike on Belgorod using cluster munitions was 'self-defense'. Scum. Bastards. Freaks."
The French response to the Belgorod massacre echoed the official position of the European Union, which has fully endorsed Kiev.

Comment: Medvedev: The gloves are coming off!

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Stop

Israel-Hamas talks of hostage deal put on pause after drone attack


Daily Sabah
Tue, 02 Jan 2024 11:24 UTC
Saleh al-Aruri
© EPAHamas deputy head of the politburo Saleh al-Aruri
Cairo, Egypt • October 2, 2017
Negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a possible agreement to free hostages have been paused after the killing of Hamas' deputy leader Saleh Arouri in Beirut on Tuesday, reports said.

Talks are now focused on avoiding escalation between Israel and Lebanon, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Tuesday evening, citing Arab diplomatic sources.

The "assassination" of Hamas deputy leader Arouri "has changed the situation," the sources were quoted say saying, adding that it was currently no longer possible to negotiate another deal.

According to Hezbollah sources, Arouri, the Deputy Head of Hamas' Political Bureau who lives in Beirut, died in an Israeli drone attack in a suburb of the Lebanese capital on Tuesday evening. Hamas has also confirmed his death.

The Israeli army on Tuesday declined to comment on the assassination of Arouri in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Military spokesman Daniel Hagari told a news conference:
"The army is in a very high state of readiness on all fronts, defensively and offensively. We are fully prepared for any scenario. The most important thing we must comment on tonight is that we are focusing on fighting Hamas."

Comment: See also:

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Bomb

Islamic State claims its suicide bombers were responsible for deadly blasts in Iran


RFE/RL
Thu, 04 Jan 2024 00:00 UTC
victims
© APVictims of the explosions in the city of Kerman • January 3, 2024
The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed responsibility for a pair of explosions in Iran that killed at least 84 people during commemorations for a former Iranian commander slain four years ago in a U.S. airstrike.

In a statement on Telegram, the group said two of its members "activated their explosives vests" at a gathering marking the anniversary of the death of Qasem Soleimani, a former commander of the elite Quds Force.

The incident has intensified fears of widening conflict in the region as Israel continues its war against the U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Yemeni-based Houthi rebels also allied with Iran continue their attacks on Red Sea commercial shipping.

Iranian state news agency IRNA on January 4 quoted the head of the National Medical Emergency Organization, Jafar Miadfar, as revising the death toll downward for a second time since the explosions, in the southeastern city of Kerman, from 95 to 84 killed and 284 injured.

Iranian authorities declared January 4 a day of mourning for the victims of the blasts.


Comment: While revenge is on the minds of authorities, Iranians are more concerned about their security and loss of life than retribution:
Describing the attack as a cowardly act, the IRGC said the perpetrators' intention was "creating insecurity and seeking revenge against the nation's deep love and devotion to the Islamic republic."

The feelings expressed by Iranians in comments to RFE/RL's Radio Farda and on social media were a mix of sadness, anger, and bewilderment. Many questioned how such an attack could be allowed to happen, or how Tehran could justify its military adventures abroad and intrusion into their everyday lives when dangerous threats exist at home.
"When all your focus is on the hijab, fines, and confiscating cars, you become negligent of the people's security!" wrote one user of X, formerly Twitter. Confiscating cars is one of many penalties for drivers and passengers caught not wearing a hijab.

"I am saddened for Kerman and worried for Iran, worried about the security that has faded," wrote another X user from Iran.
But there has been little questioning among the authorities or state media of the security forces' inability to prevent the attack on a gathering of thousands of people.

Only a member of parliament's Energy Security Commission, Fereydoun Abbasi, suggested in an interview with the IRGC-affiliated Tabnak news site that "negligence on the part of guards or security forces" may have played a part.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, after claiming that the attack was part of a broader conspiracy by Iran's enemies to attack large ceremonies, gave televised assurances on January 4 that "security, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies are fully aware and in control."


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Eye 2

Pedo island: The corrupt system that created Jeffrey Epstein has survived his downfall

Graham Hryce
RT
Fri, 05 Jan 2024 21:04 UTC
jeffrey epstein ghislaine maxwell
© Handout/US District Court fo the Southern District of New York/AFPJeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
New court papers have been released in the sex trafficking saga - but the people named in them are likely to escape unscathed

An American court this week released over 900 documents relating to the sordid and seemingly never-ending Jeffrey Epstein saga.

Epstein was the very well-connected billionaire financial adviser - with a fondness for being "massaged" by teenage girls from Miami trailer parks - who committed suicide (so it is said) in a Manhattan prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The Western media had, of course, conferred celebrity status on Epstein - in tandem with his lover and partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, long before his controversial and opportune death. Maxwell, no stranger to scandal in her own right, is the daughter of disgraced billionaire publisher Robert Maxwell - who committed suicide in 1991 on the eve of being exposed for having stolen hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies' pension funds.

Comment: Plaintiff Cernovich: Epstein document dump is a 'cover-up'

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Dollars

Pentagon 'out of money' for Ukraine


RT
Fri, 05 Jan 2024 20:38 UTC
Patrick Ryder, Pentagon spokesman
© AP / Alex BrandonPentagon spokesman US Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder
The US government has exhausted its funds for military assistance to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesman Major General Patrick Ryder has said, noting that Washington is simply "out of money" unless lawmakers pass a new aid package.

Speaking to reporters at a Thursday briefing, Ryder explained that while the Pentagon is authorized to spend another $4.2 billion on weapons for Ukraine, the actual funds are not available and must be set aside by Congress.

"We have the authority to spend that [$4.2 billion] from available funds but wouldn't have the ability to replenish the stocks by taking money out - or taking stuff out of our inventory," the spokesman said, adding "We're out of money."

Comment: If only the Pentagon really were out of money and had to stop funding wars all over the world.

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