RSS
John Fetterman Slams ‘Anti-Israel’ UN Experts for Censuring Western Support of Jewish State
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) gives an interview in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 18, 2024. Photo: Rod Lamkey / CNP/Sipa USA for NY Post via Reuters Connect
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) lambasted “anti-Israel” UN human rights experts for censuring Western countries on Monday over their continued support for Israel despite what they described as a genocide in Gaza.
“These so-called ‘experts’ have consistently revealed their anti-Israel bias and a censure from one of them is a badge of honor,” Fetterman posted on X/Twitter. ” No apologies and zero conditions for any essential support for Israel.”
Fetterman also posted a picture from a news story reporting on the warnings from the UN experts.
These so-called ‘experts’ have consistently revealed their anti-Israel bias and a censure from one of them is a badge of honor.
No apologies and zero conditions for any essential support for Israel. pic.twitter.com/YMZUOYmw1J
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) September 16, 2024
The most outspoken of the UN experts on Monday was Francesca Albanese, the UN’s notoriously controversial special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories.
“Shockingly, in the face of the abyss reached in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] … most member states remained inactive at best, or actively aiding and assisting Israel’s criminal conduct,” Albanese told a press conference in Geneva. “I think it’s unavoidable for Israel to become a pariah in the face of its continuous, relentless, vilifying assault of the United Nations, on top of millions of Palestinians.”
Israel has denied such allegations, noting the extensive lengths to which its military has gone to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, where Hamas often places its military targets within or underneath civilian targets such as schools and hospitals.
Though Fetterman campaigned as a progressive, he has surprisingly emerged as a staunch ally of Israel in the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. Fetterman has repeatedly condemned anti-Israel voices within his own party in the US Congress, as well as elite universities for tolerating what he has characterized as antisemitic and anti-Israel hate speech on their campuses.
Fetterman’s criticism came as Brown University in Rhode Island received backlash over its decision to host Albanese for a discussion on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The Ivy League university hosted Albanese, an Italina lawyer, for a talk on Monday titled “Anatomy of a Genocide: A Failure of the International System?” The roughly hour-and-a-half discussion centered on the international community’s response to Israel’s ongoing defensive military operations in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Toward the beginning of the discussion, Albanese decried Israel’s military campaign as the “monstrosity of this century.”
“To justify the protection of their security, Israel continues to take land from the Palestinians, subjugate the Palestinians, and impose conditions of life that result in humiliation and indignities,” Albanese said during the livestream.
Though Albanese insisted that she has repeatedly condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7 slaughter of roughly 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 others in southern Israel, she said she believes the Jewish state’s response has been disproportionate. As Albanese has done many times before, she accused Israel of targeting schools, hospitals, designated safe zones, and using starvation as a weapon against the population.
Israel has denied such accusations, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.
Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Nonetheless, Albanese condemned Israel’s allies, saying they “should have changed course of action,” citing concerns over the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
“Instead they have continued to give Israel financial, economic, and political support and courage, and this is the failure of the system,” Albanese said.
She expressed gratitude toward students and university faculty members who have participated in anti-Israel demonstrations against Israel’s so-called “genocidal” war in Gaza.
Albanese’s participation in an official Brown University event drew widespread backlash from members of the school’s academic community. Over 2,400 members of the Brown community signed a letter urging the school to disinvite the controversial UN expert.
Albanese has been widely criticized for exhibiting an apparent bias against Israel. Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state. In the months following Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 assault on the Jewish state, Albanese has accused Israel of enacting a “genocide”against the Palestinian people in revenge for the Oct. 7 attacks.
The United Nations has recently launched a probe against Albanese over allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations. She has called on the UN to expel Israel, comparing the Jewish state to apartheid-era South Africa.
The post John Fetterman Slams ‘Anti-Israel’ UN Experts for Censuring Western Support of Jewish State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.