#Rami Ismail

[theindieinformer]

Vlambeer Co-owner Now Owns 100% Of Company

Vlambeer is now wholly owned by one of the studio's founding pair of developers.

The founders and now former co-owners of prolific indie studio Vlambeer have announced only one of them will continue with the company. On X/Twitter this morning, Jan Willem Nijman and Rami Ismail announced that Willem Nijman has bought out Ismail’s shares of the dormant entity and now controls one hundred percent of Vlambeer. 🚨 VIDEOGAME COMPANY ACQUISITION ALERT 🚨Big news: I now own 100% of…

[northgazaupdates]

Heartbreaking news out of north Gaza today

We write to inform you that renowned journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul and cameraman Ramy El-Rifi of Al-Jazeera were murdered just a few hours ago by the occupation. They were going out to document the scene of another bombing attack, when they were deliberately targeted by the occupation. Footage provided by journalist Osama Al-Ashi in the immediate aftermath of the attack shows that Ismail and Ramy were murdered with targeted precision weaponry, meaning the occupation watched them, waited for them, and executed them in cold blood (warning: graphic footage).

Ismail and Ramy have been documenting the genocide at immense personal cost since the 7th of October 2023. They were previously kidnapped and tortured by the occupation, but survived and continued to remain in north Gaza and document crimes against humanity. They have had many narrow escapes, and today, the occupation was finally successful in its illegal goal of assassinating these prominent journalists.

When western journalists hand-wave their suppression of the IOF’s atrocities in Gaza by claiming no journalists are “allowed” in to report, remember these men. Remind them of these men. These men who lost friends and loved ones, who suffered immensely, and yet chose to remain and continue documenting the genocide against their people. They join the ranks of more than 150 Gazan journalists who were murdered by the occupation to hide its crimes and retaliate for speaking the truth.

حسبنا الله و نعم الوكيل

أنا لله و أنا اليه رجعون

God suffices us and he is the best disposer of affairs. We belong to God and to Him we shall return.

Keep fighting for Gaza. Don’t stop talking about north Gaza.

[arctic-hands]

israel killed another journalist, and his cameraman

[nando161mando]

The Committee to Protect Journalists has issued an alert concerning the safety of Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif in Gaza following Israeli threats.

Last week, Israel assassinated Anas’s colleague Ismail Al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi in a targeted drone attack in Gaza.

[arablit]

New Poetry for Ismail Al-Ghoul and Rami Al-Rifi

For Ismail Al-Ghoul and Rami Al-Rifi By Heba Al-Agha Translated by Julia Choucair Vizoso   No grief to bear in this city no wall to weep on   no helmet no armor to carry us All, too heavy for our bodies   no friendly ally to panic to: see how quickly people die here   nothing to keep us from death but death itself. If you can, please support Heba via her GoFundMe. Heba Al-Agha is a mother,…

[galactica-phantom]

i've been told i look like howard stern enough times in my life that i don't think i could ever actually pass as feminine lmao. maybe some kind of 70s brian eno/david bowie kind of thing though

[satoniko]

Game Awards only giving devs 30 seconds to talk while blasting the whole 3 hour show with ads and sponsored speeches with biased jury votings while also ignoring the protestors outside the venue demonstrating the insane studio lay offs this year and addressing none of it?

the industry is in a state for sure.

Also watching my CEO walk on stage to announce our big platform release right after telling that same team that made it possible that they're laid off? bold move i guess.

anyways i'm jobless end of next month if above wasn't indication enough.

[insertdisc5]

hihi!!! i absolutely adore isat and it inspired me to start making my own rpgmaker game, so i had a quick question for you! if you haven't talked about it before, how did you personally go about finding a publisher? im pretty early in my own development process but it just seems like a daunting thing to find one :o

i hope you have a wonderful day!!! :3

I'm so good at bideo game that they came to ME (sparkles) thanks start again a prologue for showing publishers I can do game good

Here's some advice for finding publishers tho (source: I have eyes, and I've taken classes about this):

-first, ask yourself: why do you need a publisher? Money, marketing, producing, all of the above? There are lots of options out there that aren't getting a publisher. You can just hire a producer (like my producer Dora Breckinridge <3)

-have a pitch ready!!!! you can find examples of pitches online, but I highly recommend looking at the Bear & Breakfast one for example. At the very least you should have concept art, if not mockups of what the game could look like, if not actual screenshots

-making a good pitch is art. Highly recommend having someone look it over. Rami Ismail has consultations available just for that purpose and he knows his stuff (all the advice I have comes from him! I took a great class of his a couple months ago)

-once you have a pitch ready, email it to literally every publisher out there. yes I know you're making an rpg and this publisher is only looking for platformers, but send it to them anyway. They will not blacklist you for this lol, worst case scenario is that they won't look at it.

-if you get zero answers, redo your pitch. If you get a couple, that's the ticket. Look at their offers and take the best one. Only say no to the others once you got that shit signed. If you get a BUNCH of answers, it means your idea rules and you could probably self publish it and don't need a publisher. But take one anyway if you want (especially for your first game!)

-having a vertical slice is always good for pitching, but not always needed? (AKA a slice of your game that shows off the story, gameplay, etc... aka shows you know how to do this)

-once you get a publisher contract, ASK A VIDEO GAME LAWYWR TO LOOK IT OVER. NOT JUST A LAWYER. A VIDEO GAME LAWYER. ITS YOUR BABY!!! FUCKING DO IT

-you should probably add a clause about if the publisher goes down. Reminder also that the video game industry is in shambles right now. Manage your expectations

-you can also self publish. It is a thing you can do. Patreon is here. Kickstarter is here. You have options!!! If you can't get a publisher it's not the end of the world!!!!!!

-I'm just a humble dev and those are my own humble thoughts as someone who got very lucky with their publisher. Armor Games was very good to me during the dev of isat!

[talenlee]

Okay, I'm curious: what do you mean by "there are only three games about America?"

You will sometimes hear me talk about the take that 'there are three games about America,' with a tone of utter revulsion and derision.

Back in 2020, Rami Ismail, a Dutch-Egyptian game developer, and one of the people responsible for games like Nuclear Throne and Ridiculous Fishing, of Vlambeer fame, expressed this fairly gentle opinion that he was not very interested in playing Kentucky Route Zero right now.

This earned the response from an actual adult, which called this 'legitimately the worst take you've ever had,' and that 'there are only about three games that are actually American.'

This thread exploded and got a lot of people in the game space badgering Rami Ismail for criticising KR0 or not valuing it enough, when again, I want to repeat, he said he was bored with the type of content it was. But don't worry, after a day or two, Rami did retract, and apologise for saying he was bored with something, as if he'd somehow slandered a dev.

It was about this time that I started blocking indie devs on sight in this thread, because these takes are unhinged. DocSquiddy, particularly, in this place, wound up having a long argument with people trying very hard to somehow express the view that America is somehow under-represented in media, and any proof to the contrary isn't 'real America.' This thread included claims that Watch_Dogs wasn't 'set in Chicago' because the rail lines weren't entirely accurate. Doc went on to claim that he was an expert in this and criticising his position was therefore wrong.

Any time you see me say 'three games about America' I'm talking about this, and the attitude of a particular kind of American that America is, as always, exceptional. It's real easy to not realise when you're just voicing your self-centeredness and how easy that is to ignore the opinions of people around you and what they're saying. And empire encourages that impulse, so much so that you can imagine 'there are only three games about america.'

[eretzyisrael]

An Israeli Air Force strike in Gaza City on July 31 killed Ismail al-Ghoul, a senior Hamas operative who took part in the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Thursday.

Al-Ghoul, who doubled as a journalist for Qatar’s Al Jazeera, participated in the murderous onslaught and instructed other terrorists on how to record and distribute videos of their attacks, the IDF said.

The statement stressed that the activities of al-Ghoul, a member of Hamas’s elite Nukba Force that led the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israeli communities, were a “vital part” of the Islamist movement’s terrorist actions.

“The IDF and Shin Bet will continue to operate to eliminate terrorists who participated in the October 7 massacre,” the army said.

The IDF clarification came after the Committee to Protect Journalists called on Israel to explain the deaths of the Al Jazeera reporter and cameraman Ramy El-Rify as they were en route to film near a house belonging to slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran this week.

While combat operations in the Strip have largely winded down amid increasing threats on Israel’s border with Lebanon, IDF troops continue to operate against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza.

[historyforfuture]

Hamas- Online English:

⭕️ Press Release

The assassination of Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza City journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul and photojournalist Rami Al-Rifi by the criminal Zionist occupation army is a heinous crime, added to the series of crimes committed by the enemy against Palestinian journalists to terrorize and silence them from conveying the details of the war of genocide that has been ongoing for nearly ten months against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Committing such cowardly crime near the home of the martyr leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Beach refugee camp, while journalists covering the assassination crime, is a confirmation of the arrogant criminal approach of the enemy and an evidence that they fear the martyr leader Ismail Haniyeh alive and martyr.

We pay our deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the two martyrs, Al Jazeera, their colleagues, and their loved ones. We call on the international press organizations to condemn this heinous crime and take strict measures against this fascist entity over what it commits of violations and crimes.

Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas

July 31,2024 Official website -Hamas movement

[good-old-gossip]

Israel TARGETS and SLAUGHTERS Palestinian Journalists for showing us the TRUTH!!!!

[courtana]

More recently, the teams behind Call of Duty have attempted to give more shade and nuance to their depictions of the Middle East. The Modern Warfare reboot centers on an Arab woman named Farah Karim, one of several playable protagonists. “It’s rare to find a memorable brown protagonist,” Hussain said when discussing the history of video games. But Farah is certainly memorable—she survives a chemical attack in the opening act and leads her home country’s freedom fighters [...]. But there’s one problem: Farah is from an entirely made-up Middle Eastern country called Urzisktan. All the other main characters have their roots in real places (Price is from the United Kingdom, Alex is an American), yet she is from a fictitious Middle Eastern place ravaged by war, divided into people who engage in terrorist acts and those who don’t. The entire region is flattened into homogeneity as a result, and it’s all too common in these types of games. “We jokingly call it ‘Arabistan,’” game developer and consultant Rami Ismail said via video call. “A game designer once came up with that term…I think a lot of us use [it]. Some people say it’s a nice thing, but I don’t really see it that way. It just means that we’re literally interchangeable, our cultures are interchangeable.” Ismail continued, “From where I’m sitting it’s like, ‘yes, there’s a country in the Middle East, it needs to be bombed.’ That’s not an improvement to me, at least have the decency of picking a place and then doing it. But by homogenizing it, they can effectively go, ‘no, no, we don’t mean any of the real people. We mean the fictional Arabs that by default are terrorists.’” [...] “It’s perpetuating the idea that there is a singular, Middle Eastern country,” Shammas said during our chat. ”It actually ties in very strongly [to current events] because we’re seeing people say, ‘Oh, well, just take the Palestinians into Egypt, take the Palestinians into Jordan.’ These are different people with different Arabic languages…Call of Duty reflects the fact that we treat these cultures as totally swappable and why people don’t care about the displacement of Palestinian indigenous people specifically.” Shammas returned to that concept later, when I brought up the image circulating social media of an alleged Israeli soldier wearing a face covering similar to Ghost from Call of Duty. “Stateless people, unnamed country—Palestine might as well be anywhere else,” she explained. “It helps with the subtle colonialist narrative that the space is empty, barren, and owned by babbling savages that you can now enter and make something of.” [...] But for many, reckoning with the legacy of military games seems nigh impossible. “There is no value in any military game, and honestly, people should find better games to play,” journalist Saniya Ahmed said in an email. “No cultural representation can come from Call of Duty, nor should it.” Shammas brought up God of War 2018 as an example of a franchise taking its core concept and turning it on its head, questioning protagonist Kratos’ legacy and relationship to violence. Can Call of Duty do something like that? “No. I don’t think it can,” she said. Ismail agreed. “The problem isn’t necessarily that we shouldn’t have Call of Duty games or that Call of Duty should be different from what it is,” he said. “Changing that would require a level of courage and a level of insight at the corporate level that just isn’t possible within our system of making games…Call of Duty is a roller-coaster built on the American consciousness of war.”

– Alyssa Mercante, "We Have To Talk (Again) About How War Games Depict The Middle East," KOTAKU (December 7, 2023).

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Scenes from the first moments after the Israeli occupation army attacked a civilian vehicle in which Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and photographer Rami al-Rifi were traveling, killing the two correspondants in what is being called an assassination in the Palestinian media. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏢💥 🚨

GENOCIDE IN GAZA DAY 299: ZIONIST OCCUPATION LASHES OUT ACROSS THE REGION, HAMAS LEADER ISMAIL HANIYEH MURDERED IN ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE ON TEHRAN, OCCUPATION BOMBS HEZBOLLAH COMMANDER IN BEIRUT SUBURBS, PALESTINIAN FACTIONS UNITED AGAINST THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION FOR THE FIRST TIME, ZIONIST COLONIAL SETTLERS STORM AL-AQSA MOSQUE, UN SAYS PALESTINIANS TORTURED IN ISRAELI PRISONS, GENOCIDE CONTINUES UNABATED AS VIOLENT AIRSTRIKES TARGET GAZA

On the 299th day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 3 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 45 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 77 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or whose bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally the number of those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

The Israeli occupation on launched a missile strike on Wednesday morning targeting the Hamas Politboro leader Ismail Haniyeh while he visited his residence in the northern suburbs of Tehran, the Iranian capital, where he had arrived to attend the swearing-in ceremony of newly elected Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Hamas resistance movement has since confirmed the death of Haniyeh, while Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei warned that the Zionist regime would receive a "harsh punishment" for the assassination of the Hamas political leader on its territory.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Ayatollah Khamenei offered his condolences to the Islamic Ummah, the axis of resistance, and the Palestinian nation over the martyredom of their "valiant leader and the prominent mujahid”.

"The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime, with this measure, prepared the ground for a harsh punishment for itself,” Khamenei stated.

The Iranian leader continued by warning that “We consider blood revenge for him (Haniyeh), who was martyred inside the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as our duty."

Iran's foreign ministry said in its own statement that the blood of Haniyeh won't be wasted, and will instead strengthen the deep and unseparable bonds between Iran and Palestine.

In response to the assassination of Haniyeh, the National and Islamic forces of Palestine announced a general strike and marches, condemning the assassination and issueing a statement mourning his death.

The forces stressed in their statement that this "cowardly assassination" will not break the will and steadfastness of the Palestinian people, but will instead increase their determination and resolve to move forward by adhering to their rights and national principles until freedom and independence can be won.

Meanwhile, prior to the assassination of Haniyeh, the Israeli occupation lashed out in another attack, launching an airstrike on the suburbs of Beirut, on Tuesday night, targeting Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, called the "right-hand man" of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the Zionist media.

According to the Times of Israel, the airstrike blew a large hole into the side of an 8-story apartment building in southern Beirut on Tuesday night, which the occupation army claims killed the Hezbollah commander.

The Lebanese Islamic resistance movement has not yet confirmed the death of Shukr.

In more news on Wednesday, July 31st, the various Palestinian factions have united for the first time to stand against the Israeli occupation.

According to the Lebanese National News Agency, the many different Palestinian factions have agreed to end their divisions and strengthen Palestinian unity by signing the Beijing Declaration, on Tuesday morning, in the Chinese capital.

The declaration was signed after the closing ceremony following a reconciliation dialogue held with the various Palestinian factions in Beijing over the period of July 21st through the 23rd.

The compact encompassed a total of 14 different Palestinian factions, including the leaders of bitter rivals Fatah and the Hamas Islamic resistance movement, with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi present for the ceremony.

Previously, the Hamas and Fatah factions met in China in April for discussions around reconciliation to end 17 years of bitter disputes.

In more news, violent Zionist colonial settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday, backed by the Israeli occupation forces who turned the Old City area of occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem) into a military barracks, according to local reporting.

Palestinian media stated that the Israeli occupation army deployed hundreds of troops around the Old City and Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in particular placing a heavy military presence in the vicinity of the gates to the compound, while Zionist soldiers tightened restrictions and measures at the compound's gates, as well as the gates to the Old City, and imposed restrictions on Islamic worshippers.

In further news for Wednesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement stating that Palestinians kidnapped and detained by the Israeli occupation army during the ongoing aggression and genocide in the Gaza Strip were mostly held in secret detention centers, and in some cases, where subjected to treatment that "may amount to torture."

Since the start of the Israel occupation's genocidal war in Gaza, "staggering numbers" of men, women, children, doctors, journalists and human rights defenders have been detained in deplorable conditions, while most have been held without charge or trial.

According to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, Palestinian detainees have faced extremely poor treatment, torture and other violations of basic human rights without due process, which has raised concerns about the arbitrary and punitive nature of the arrests and detentions.

Testimonies collected by the agency point to conditions in prisons run by the Israeli occupation that are worsening, while Palestinian children are among the detainees, who are allegedly being held in some cases with adults.

The UN Commission reported that detainees are being held in "cage-like facilities, stripped naked for long periods, and left in diapers," while other detainees told the Commission they were blindfolded for long periods and subjected to electric shocks, burned by cigarettes, and deprived of food, sleep and water.

"Some detainees reported that dogs were set on them, while others reported being waterboarded, or having their hands tied and their bodies hung from the ceiling. Men and women also reported being subjected to sexual and gender-based violence," according to High Commissioner Turk.

Turk went on to emphasize that international humanitarian law protects all detainees and requires they be treated humanely and protected from all acts of violence or threats of violence.

"International law requires that all persons deprived of their liberty be treated with humanity and dignity, and strictly prohibits torture or other ill-treatment, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. Prolonged incommunicado and secret detention may amount to a form of torture,” Turk said.

The High Commissioner went on to call for prompt, thorough, independent, impartial and transparent investigations into all incidents resulting in serious violations of international law, and to ensure that any perpetrators be held accountable, while all victims and their families have a right to redress and reparation.

Meanwhile, dozens more Palestinians were killed and wounded over Tuesday and Wednesday, while the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continued their unparalleled destruction of Gaza's housing, infrastructure and public facilities.

According to local reporting, the occupation army launched a bombardment of a residential house in the Al-Mawasi area, northwest of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, where thousands of Palestinians have been directed towards after being evacuated from their homes and shelters in other areas of Gaza. As a result of the strike, several civilians were killed and wounded.

At the same time, reports stated that a number of wounded civilians arrived at a Red Cross field hospital after the Israeli occupation forces opened gunfire on the tents of displaced Palestinian families in the Al-Mawasi area.

Local healthcare sources also reported the death of one Palestinian and the injury of 4 others after Zionist warplanes bombed the town of Abasan Al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

IOF artillery shelling also hammered the Al-Zaytoun, Al-Shujaiya, and Al-Tuffah neighborhoods of Gaza City, resulting in large numbers of casualties among civilians, including women and children.

Occupation artillery shelling went on to pummel neighborhoods east of Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, while violent explosions were recorded in conjunction with heavy gunfire from Zionist military vehicles in the same area.

In another horrific atrocity, a Zionist drone bombed a gathering of civilians in the vicinity of the Electric company in the town of Al-Zawaida, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of 8 Palestinians who were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah.

In another war crime and atrocity, two Al-Jazeera journalists were killed in a direct attack by the Israeli occupation army on a civilian vehicle in Gaza City.

Local reporting stated that Al-Jazeera correspondant Ismail al-Ghoul and photographer Rami al-Rifi were killed on Wednesday evening when the Israeli occupation forces bombed their car in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City.

Video clips of the incident showed a civilian vehicle the two journalists were traveling in reduced to rubble, with smoke rising from the remains and blood spattered across the wreckage.

According to Palestinian reporting, more than 155 journalists have been killed by the occupation army since the start of the genocide on October 7th, 2023, while another 100 headquarters of journalistic institutions have been destroyed and over 100 additional journalists have been arrested or detained by the Zionist entity.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, the endlessly rising death toll now exceeds 39'445 Palestinians killed, including at least 10'300 women and over 15'700 children, while another 91'073 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

This brings the total number of casualties in Gaza to well over 130'518, or the equivalent of 5.67% of Gaza's 2.3 million residents.

July 31st, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[gryficowa]

Boycott!

Now that I have your attention:

[alaa-pales]

An Israeli air strike killed Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi while they were reporting from northern Gaza. Al Jazeera Media Network has called their killings a “cold-blooded assassination.”

They are killing Al Jazeera journalists because they are the only news outlet after social media that’s speak the truth.

Verified by OOB master list line 395 👍

Sending you lots of love and hugs for standing with us🇵🇸🍉🙏