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Israel Dropped 8 Tons Of Explosives, Killing Dozens Of Civilians In Bid To Kill Hamas Leader

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Palestinians react at the site of a damaged house that was hit in Israeli bombardment on Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 16, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images)

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By ROBERT SCHMAD

 

After years of hunting a top Hamas terrorist, Israeli forces dropped a massive payload of bombs on his suspected location Saturday and killed a large number of civilians in the process, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Israeli air force dropped the eight 2,000-pound bombs on a compound in southern Gaza in an attempt to kill Hamas’ top military leader, Mohammed Deif, killing dozens of civilians in the process, according to the WSJ. Israel had tried and failed seven times to kill Deif prior to its most recent attack, and, though military officials are still investigating the bomb site, they are confident Deif is dead.

“I witnessed some of the most horrific scenes I have seen in my nine months in Gaza,” Scott Anderson, Gaza-based director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, told the WSJ. Gaza health authorities, which are controlled by Hamas and typically don’t distinguish between civilian and military casualties, say that more than 90 people were killed and 300 were wounded in the bombing, including women and children.

Israeli officials claim they killed several Hamas members in the strike, the WSJ reported. Hamas denies that Dief died in the bombing. (RELATED: IDF Claims Over 100 Hamas Fighters Killed After Wrapping Up Operation In Terrorist Stronghold)

Israeli officials believe Deif was a major player in orchestrating the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that killed 1,200 people in Israel, according to the WSJ.

The area surrounding the compound was home to a market, a water source and a soup kitchen serving refugees, according to the WSJ. Israeli forces acknowledged that the area they bombed was inhabited by civilians, though they blamed the casualties on Hamas for hiding among the people.

President Joe Biden froze the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel in May over concerns about the collateral damage they can cause, though the United States is still sending 500-pound bombs, The Times of Israel reported. “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden told CNN in an interview, referring to the 2,000-pound munitions.

Mahmoud Abu Amer, who was roughly 100 yards away from the bomb site, described the explosion as “like a fiery belt” and said that he “saw people falling in front of me,” according to the WSJ.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. The Israeli Defense Forces referred the DCNF to the nation’s public diplomacy desk, which also did not return a request for comment.

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The West Is Playing With Fire In Ukraine

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National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Morgan Murphy

As wars tend to do, the battle over Ukraine continues to escalate.

It was reported this week that North Korean soldiers in the conflict total 10,000 thus far and that Russia has rewarded Pyongyang by sending its excellent air defense systems to the Korean Peninsula in exchange.

Last month, the National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, warned that any North Korean troops fighting in the conflict would be, “fair game and fair targets.”

His green light delivered this week when “a high-ranking North Korean military officer [became] a casualty” according to a Wall Street Journal story on Thursday. That strike was allegedly conducted with British Storm Shadow missiles.

Just these recent events further entangle the U.S., U.K., North Korea, South Korea, and China within the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

But the week’s biggest Ukraine news rattled many Americans — the Biden administration authorized Ukraine to strike targets within Russia with the American-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

“The missiles will speak for themselves,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy boasted.

They sure will. First of all, the U.S. doesn’t have many of the $1.3 million missiles to lob around. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo warned an audience at the Brookings Institute this week that the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine are “now eating into stocks … and to say otherwise would be dishonest.”

I’ve met and been briefed by Admiral Paparo, who is one of the most positive and straight-talking flag officers in our military. If he is publicly ringing the warning bell, U.S. policy leaders should take heed.

Putin did not take the news of the ATACMS well. In response, he announced the use of a hypersonic ballistic missile on Thursday, carefully noting that it didn’t carry a nuclear warhead. The unspoken part: next time, it might.

What’s the goal in Biden’s escalation? It seems the White House is trying to prevent the inevitable or blame Trump for Ukraine’s upcoming defeat.

What they won’t admit is that the metrics of the war are not in Ukraine’s favor, and frankly never have been. No supersonic missile will change the immutable: Russia boasts a population five times Ukraine’s and when it comes to war materiel, Russia is winning. Despite Biden’s attempt to hobble the Russian economy, Putin’s war industry is outproducing the West by three times in the basic munitions needed to prosecute a land battle.

But aren’t Russians dying en mass on the battlefield?

Western leaders keep touting Russia’s high death toll, which estimates now place at 600,000. To military strategists here in the United States, such a human cost is unimaginable. Add up every American combat death going back 160 years through the Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I, and even the Union combat deaths in the Civil War, and the number does’t reach what Russia has lost in the past 1,000 days.

American and NATO leaders are foolish to underestimate Russian resolve.

Since its initial blundering and poorly-executed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has recovered from its mistakes, Russian public support for the war remains high, and the Russian economy hasn’t fallen apart. Putin may have lost the virtue-signaling battle of Ukrainian flag lapel pins, but make no mistake: he’s on a path to win the war.

Biden’s deputy Pentagon press secretary, Sabrina Singh, says don’t worry. On Thursday she told reporters the administration was sending as much American weapons and support to Ukraine as it can muster, “in the weeks and months ahead left of this administration. So, that’s what we’re really focused on.”

What did she make of Putin’s nuclear threat?  “I mean, you know, we’ve seen this type of, you know, dangerous, reckless rhetoric before from President Putin,” Singh said.

“I mean, you know?” No, we don’t know. The world hasn’t seen nuclear threats like this since Harry S. Truman demanded Japan surrender.

For anyone worried about the state of our national security, January 20th can’t come quickly enough.

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Russia has sent the West a message: Don’t provoke us into escalating the war

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From LifeSiteNews

By Conservative Treehouse

The U.S., U.K., and NATO war alliance is desperate to provoke Vladimir Putin into expanded engagement prior to Donald Trump taking office. NATO members, sans Biden, met after the U.S. election to organize a strategy to Trump-proof their efforts.

Despite the diminutive Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky jumping around and shouting about Russians firing an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Thursday, they didn’t. Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided his response to the U.S-led NATO group firing missiles into the Russian Federation would be to send a message with a multi-warhead intermediate range hypersonic missile. (Click here for background information.)

President Vladimir Putin said “one of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested in combat conditions, in this case with a ballistic missile in non-nuclear hypersonic edition.” The missile has a range of approximately 3,500 kilometers, below the threshold for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) – that’s a reach throughout western Europe, and the hypersonic message is likely, “You have no iron dome system that can prevent this.”

From Reuters:

Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at the city of Dnipro on Thursday in response to the U.S. and UK allowing Kyiv to strike Russian territory with advanced Western weapons, in a further escalation of the 33-month-old war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address, said Moscow struck a Ukrainian military facility with a new ballistic missile known as ‘Oreshnik’ (the hazel) and warned that more could follow.

‘A regional conflict in Ukraine previously provoked by the West has acquired elements of a global character,’ Putin said in an address to the nation carried by state television after 8 pm Moscow time (1700 GMT).

A U.S. official said that Washington was pre-notified by Russia shortly before its strike, while another said they had briefed Kyiv and other close allies in recent days to prepare for the possible use of such a weapon.

Regardless of its classification, the latest strike highlighted rapidly rising tensions in the past several days.

Ukraine fired U.S. and British missiles at targets inside Russia this week despite warnings by Moscow that it would see such action as a major escalation.

The U.S., U.K., and NATO war alliance is desperate to provoke Vladimir Putin into expanded engagement prior to President-elect Donald Trump taking office. The NATO members, sans Biden, previously met in Brussels after the U.S. election to organize a strategy to Trump-proof their efforts.

Increasingly it looks like Great Britain will lead the provocation effort, with full support of the U.S. war machine. We previously said to watch Moldova closely, because that strategic position would be the most likely place of Western political influence to provoke Russia.

Indeed, as things are starting to unfold with increased urgency stimulated by the U.S. election outcome, now we see the U.K. entering a new agreement for military defense of Moldova being pre-positioned. From a U.K. government press release:

A new UK-Moldova Defence and Security Partnership has also been launched today, building on extensive cooperation between the two countries and strengthening Moldovan resilience against external threats. This partnership will bolster support for the sovereignty, security and stability of Ukraine, helping to strengthen national security at home in the face of increasing Russian aggression.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said:

‘Moldova is a vital security partner for the UK, which is why to reinforce their resilience against Russian aggression and to keep British streets safe, I am deepening cooperation on irregular migration and launching a new Defence and Security Partnership.

‘With Ukraine next door, Moldovans are constantly reminded of Russia’s oppression, imperialism and aggression.[‘]

As the design of the strategy appears to be unfolding, Great Britain, with U.S. covert operational support, will position themselves inside Moldova. NATO troops are already on the ground there, much to the anxiety of the average Moldovan.

The intellectually honest people of Moldova, using the reference point of prior activity by the U.S. in Ukraine, clearly see themselves being set up as cannon fodder for Western military usefulness. The Great Britain/CIA/NATO team appears likely to use the geography of Moldova to provoke Russia into some form of response.

The baseline for the continued need to avoid any cessation of hostilities in Ukraine is financial. BlackRock and JPMorgan have exclusive rights to the “rebuilding” of Ukraine, with access to all the resources therein. Thus there is an alignment of interests between BlackRock, JPMorgan, NATO, the U.S. State Department, and the internal operatives of the Biden administration.

At the same time, the Deep State (those who control Biden), the Intelligence Community, in combination with the anti-Trump DOJ-NSD (National Security Division), are using the increased hostility to bait President-elect Trump into saying something contradictory about current U.S.-NATO policy – a Logan Act violation.

So far President Trump has remained quiet, as the provocation against our peaceful interests are ongoing. For his part, Vladimir Putin has remained reserved and careful in his response; however, as U.S./NATO missiles continue to land inside the Russian Federation, there is concern that Putin’s restrained responses may indeed escalate.

We hope there are backchannels between Moscow and Mar-a-Lago; however, without any doubt the Intelligence Community is looking to intercept any communication that might possibly be taking place. Everyone in and around the orbit of President Trump likely has national security surveillance on them.

The industrial war machine is attempting to defend itself against any peace effort.

“Troublesome” is an understatement.

Reprinted with permission from Conservative Treehouse.

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