#us troops southern border

[yesornopolls]

Let states monitor pregnancies and prosecute women who get abortions Give the president unchecked power over federal agencies Restore the president’s authority to bypass Congress Appoint a special prosecutor to ‘go after’ Biden Use the Justice Department to get revenge on all of his enemies Expand presidential immunity Purge the civil service Install thousands of loyalists throughout the federal government Fill his Cabinet with people like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon Round up, detain, and deport millions of undocumented immigrants Deploy U.S troops for ‘war’ on southern border End birthright citizenship Reinterpret anti-racism protections to benefit white people Construct ‘Freedom Cities’ Put flying cars in Americans’ driveways

[steveyockey]

I paid $5 to access séamus malekafzali’s latest substack on palestine, here’s the full text,

It is easy to be lulled into a state of complacency, even with military occupation.

Israel’s occupation of Palestine has gone on longer than many of us on Earth have been alive, now going on 75 years. The levels of that deplacement, blockading, and violence have ebbed and flowed over years and decades, but that hand around the neck has always remained, even if how much it constricts has a tendency to loosen and tighten. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israel this year in its occupation. News bulletins of them dying, oftentimes teenagers, come up through the headlines of Palestinian newspapers and channels as often as the weather. These deaths at the hands of Israeli security personnel are not isolated incidents, with soldiers materializing on roadsides and at checkpoints as unfortunate coincidence. They are constant spikes in the waveform of an incessant low-grade hum of humiliation, imprisonment, and destruction that has made daily life a forced agreement to constantly exist on the precipice of death.

This framing is not meant to be a tired retread of the conflict between Israel and Palestine or the nature of the Israeli occupation. This is meant to be a bulwark against the inevitable framing of this latest battle unfolding around Gaza, as it will appear in the Western media in the days to come.

There is a tendency, a deep-set one, to report Israel and Palestine as two countries that are on roughly the same playing field internationally, as you might report on a war that might involve Israel battling against a place like Jordan or Egypt. This kind of coverage obscures how deeply interlocked Israel’s military operations are with the fabric of the Palestinian society.

In the West Bank, settlements and checkpoints have made Palestinian land into a kind of comical archipelago, where in addition to being separated from Gaza by a huge land border, they are also separated from traveling to communities only a stone’s throw away from them without going through significant anguish. In Gaza, while no Israeli soldiers walk the streets, all their land borders are essentially sealed, their ports almost completely blockaded. Israel’s continued occupation has been so pinpoint and precise that its planes have gone as far as bombing bookstores, and its restrictions did not let up even when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced one health organization to carrying only as many tests of the deadly disease as could fit in a car.

This is not a matter of moral justification; one does not need to constantly busy themselves with having to make a full ideological conversion before understanding this. This is a matter of cause and effect.

What is the logical expectation, regardless of politics, ideology, culture, and creed, when a population of people is thrust into conditions that can only be described as an open-air prison, where every individual is a criminal in the eyes of the military occupying power regardless if they pick up a rifle or not, because there is supposedly always the threat that they will one day?

These are the basic conditions that have preceded the initiation of Operation al-Aqsa Storm this morning. As dawn broke on the morning of October 7, only one day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, launched a military operation of unprecedented scope in its history. Hamas fighters would not only attempt to enter Israeli territory proper with ground troops, already in of itself an intensely bold action (though not without precedent in the past decade). This operation would be a combined incursion into Israel by both land, sea, and even air. Ground forces would cut the border fence into settlements surrounding Gaza, speedboats would make landings in southern Israel, and fighters from a newly-inaugurated paraglider division would fly over the border fortifications and then further inland.

Threats of an invasion of Israeli territory proper have been a staple of speeches from Hamas and Hezbollah and groups like it for years. There was a long-standing perception by outside observers that it was fanciful. An intentionally lofty piece of propaganda that fires up supporters while the real military wheeling and dealing is done under far more subtle and controlled terms, as with most militant organizations. After all, no Israeli-administered town, the ones occupied in Palestine during the initial 1948 war, had ever been taken in any war against the Jewish state since its creation, even by a combined force of multiple Arab national militaries.

That notion now can no longer exist.

At sunrise, Hamas fired a gigantic barrage of rockets into Israeli territory, a staggering 5,000 in the first wave alone. As Israeli military and police forces were distracted by fires and rocket destruction in residential areas of the country, Palestinian forces in Gaza proceeded to make their primary move.

After the sun rose, Hamas cut through the border fence surrounding Israel and sent both fighters on foot and on motorcycles into Israel. Images released by the group seem to tell a story in frozen figures. Israeli soldiers, strewn dead, caught by surprise, one having even rushed out so quickly that he put on his military gear but no other clothes except his underwear. An even grimmer story could be found in one of the IDF military dormitories, where an entire room full of soldiers had been massacred, only having perhaps seconds earlier gotten the alarm that Hamas had breached the perimeter, many of them seemingly mid-way through getting out of bed.

From there, Hamas made unprecedented move after unprecedented move. Hamas fighters moved as far north into Zikim, built on the former Palestinian village of Hiribya, and moved as far east as Ofakim, built on the former hamlet of Khirbat Futais. The Erez Crossing, for years the only legal border crossing that Israel operated with the Gaza Strip, came under full Palestinian control. Sderot, a city where Israelis had once gathered on couches dragged to high peaks to watch the bombardment of Palestinians, now found themselves facing down Palestinian fighters in their own streets.

An additional shock would come in Israel’s initial response. Amidst cataclysmic scenes like hundreds of ravers in the desert near Gaza fleeing on foot, neither the Israeli president nor the prime minister spoke in those early hours in the morning.

The Israeli high command, despite the continuous insistence of Palestinian factions that they would one day attempt to take the fight into Israel itself, had become complacent. They, like many observers of Israel-Palestine, believed the occupation they had constructed could go on forever, unburdened by the need to adapt. Israeli soldiers after all were now more used to sniping reporters and unarmed protesters than engaging in military conflict. Entropy was what was propelling the military occupation complex of the Jewish state, not a wholly active effort.

Despite an ungodly amount of Western military equipment, highly advanced anti-aircraft systems programmed to shoot down thousands of rockets, an international reputation for tenacity and strategic knowhow, and multiple victories against Arab nations again and again and again, all of it ended up being useless against a Hamas fighter flying in on a box fan and a parachute.

This failure is two-fold, and both are closely related. One is the expectation that things could go on as before without addressing the root of the issue (that being a military occupation of an entire state), and the other in expectation that those being occupied had no capacity to learn from experience how Israel’s military strategy operates, people who could then going on to capitalize on that knowledge.

There is a fundamental flaw in the perception of Western powers toward the Middle East in general and Arabs in particular that because the groups fighting with Israel or the United States are irregular, bereft of highly professional uniforms and dedicated gigantic military headquarters, that they do not have the same ability to strategize and to confront the forces that are occupying their countries. Flashes of how faulty this thinking is rear their head again and again, from Iraq to Afghanistan and everywhere in-between and around, but still the idea, unspoken as it may be, remains that they are fundamentally unequipped compared to the might they are fighting against. But Hamas has military strategists of its own, ones that understand the asymmetric situation they are dealing with, and ones that understand what the actual capabilities of Israel are, versus what their perception is.

The perception of Israel’s invulnerability versus what has actually been displayed today could not have been more different. Instead of being forced to immediately pull back, in essence making today a raid, Hamas has instead actually contested several Israeli settlements, which are still being fought over at time of this writing many hours after the initial incursion from Gaza began. A single Israeli soldier captured and held in Gaza used to capture the Israeli imagination for years; now there are believed to be not only tens of soldiers captured by Hamas, but tens of Israeli civilians as well, all now being held within the Strip. Hamas has also brought Israeli military vehicles back into the Strip, the novelty of working IDF equipment now under Palestinian control a source of celebration within the territory. Over 100 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the first day of Hamas’ attack, and nearly 1000 injured, a shocking early casualty count in an ongoing conflict where casualties on the Palestinians’ side are usually far more lopsided.

Israel’s response so far to Hamas’ operation has been to escalate rhetorically, with Netanyahu now calling this a war, and escalating its usual military strategy with Gaza, with carpet bombing now on an intense, concentrated scale. At the time of this writing, almost 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in only a few hours, with that number expected to rise significantly in the days to come. Already, news has come in of Israeli planes having leveled Gaza’s second-largest building, the Palestine Tower, which housed a plethora of media offices, in scenes reminiscent of Israel’s bombing of another tower block of media offices in 2021 that infamously took out the local bureau of the Associated Press.

As fighting continues into the night in ways never seen before since 1948, the question remains: after all these decades, why now?

The ostensible justifications of what the clincher was that sparked this operation are innumerable, but two appear to be most clearly illuminated: the recent increased activity of far-right Zionists at the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem (hence the name of the operation itself), but just as well the indications that the Saudi Arabia and Israel may be close to a normalization deal, which would be the largest such development in the Abraham Accords yet. Hezbollah mentioned this operation as being a “message” and a “decisive response�� to Arab nations pursuing the idea of normalization with Israel. Still, it is important to recognize that pinning the undertaking of a completely gigantic operation of this scale as just a simple message to Saudi Arabia would be reductive. As the Los Angeles Times’ international correspondent Nabih Bulos says of the matter:

“To pretend that Hamas did this to be a spoiler of KSA-Israel normalization is just downright epic in its navel-gazing nonsense.”

What is important to always return to is that eternally governing line above everything: the low hum of constant occupation, and who has been causing its spikes. Israel’s government, its most far-right in its history, has been on the warpath almost immediately from its inauguration, with figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, now thrust to the forefront, doing everything large and small to provoke a Palestinian response. The hope is that the inevitable Palestinian response can mobilize the Israeli society, that it can be swiftly defeated by the Israeli military, and that the Israeli state can use such an opportunity to impose its sovereignty over what little of Palestine governed by Palestinians remains, and perhaps even what lies beyond it.

But that formula relies on the Palestinian side only accepting being provoked, themselves having no strategy of their own outside of firing rockets and yelling on television. Military occupation breeds a feeling of annihilation, but that annihilation is enclosed with it inevitable feelings of rabid and desperate hope, inspiring within irregular groups desires to try things never tried before. These are not always guaranteed to be successful: one may look at Aleppo when rebel groups managed to come together and break the siege on the city in the final stages of the battle, only for it to fall in the months to come anyway. Nevertheless, there is a real perception within Israel, communicated out to the world by its media and by its intelligentsia, that it is a nation on the verge of internal collapse, brought to the precipice by far-right forces it has let fester for decades without envisioning its eventual conclusion.

What does looking at how Israel is faring now communicate to Palestinian factions in Gaza? What do young people in Gaza, who make up 47% of the Strip’s population, imagine might lie ahead for them as they see these events unfold? What does a Hamas fighter imagine might be possible when, as the writer Josef Burton says, he exits a 25 by 7-mile space he’s never left in his entire life?

[sayruq]

Top Israeli and Egyptian officials held a secret meeting in Cairo on 24 April, aimed at discussing Tel Aviv’s plans for an invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. Three senior Israeli officials told Axios on Wednesday that Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi met with the head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel, and Egypt’s army chief Osama Askar. The report came the same day that an Israeli defense official said that Israel will launch the operation in Rafah as soon as it gets government approval. Israel is “moving ahead” with the operation, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, but gave no specific time frame.

US and Israeli officials held a virtual meeting last week to discuss plans for Rafah. The decision to launch the operation is “conditions-based and not time-based, and connected to the humanitarian situation on the ground,” Tel Aviv emphasized to Washington during the meeting, according to US officials. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 23 April, citing Egyptian officials, that Israel’s evacuation plans for Rafah are near complete. The plan will take two to three weeks and will be carried out in cooperation with Washington, Cairo, and other Arab states, including the UAE. Egyptian forces have deployed in the northern Sinai and along the Gaza border, and are at “full readiness” after being briefed by Israel on plans for Rafah, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported on 18 April.

Israel’s evacuation plan involves moving Rafah’s civilian population upwards towards the southern city of Khan Yunis, as well as other areas of the strip, the report states, adding that shelters with tents, food supplies, and medical facilities will be set up. Recently published satellite images show a large tent compound in Khan Yunis and Israeli troop gatherings at army bases and outposts near the strip – signaling that the invasion of Rafah may be imminent.

[athena5898]

(PrR)Hezbollah Operations Room (1/2):

Field Summary of the Battle of the Mighty Ones issued by the Operations Room of the Islamic Resistance

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful "Permission [to fight] has been granted to those who are being fought, because they were wronged, and indeed, Allah is competent to grant them victory. This is the Truth of Allah, the Most High, the Almighty.

The fighters of the Islamic Resistance continue to repel the "israeli" aggression on Lebanon, inflicting significant losses on the enemys forces, equipment, its officers, and its soldiers, along the confrontation axes from the front edge to deep inside occupied Palestine.

Ground Engagements:

On 28-10-2024, large numbers of "israeli" troops and equipment began advancing (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65416) towards the town of Khiam under heavy aerial cover over the surrounding areas and stationed on front-line positions in Tal Nahas, Hamames, and the Al-Majidiya plain.

According to pre-set defensive plans and after closely monitoring potential routes of advancement, Islamic Resistance fighters executed a fire-based defense plan, focusing on synchronized, targeted missile and artillery strikes against enemy movements and positions, both within Lebanese territories and the occupied interior. Over a period of three continuous days, more than 70 targeting operations were conducted (50 of them around the town’s southern and eastern edges), resulting in the destruction of four tanks with guided missiles and the killing and wounding of their crews. Additionally, a soldier position in the "Metulla" settlement was hit by a guided missile, resulting in deaths and injuries among them. A security team in Tal Nahas was also targeted with a guided missile, and the military media released footage documenting (https://t.me/PalestineResist/66479) the successful hit.

One of the most notable operations involved a precision missile barrage that targeted large gatherings of enemy troops and vehicles in Wadi Al-Asafir, southeast of the town, using qualitative precision missiles with 250 kg warheads filled with high-explosive materials. The powerful explosions and high casualty numbers created panic and confusion within enemy ranks.

Beyond rocket and artillery barrages targeting enemy movements within Lebanese territories, several strikes were carried out in the rear areas of the forces participating in the attack our land, specifically through:

Targeting attack-support forces around Khiam and in "Metulla" settlement site and its surrounding orchards with 11 concentrated missile barrages and artillery shells, achieving confirmed hits.

23 rocket barrages on training camps, missile launch bases, and command centers in "Ayelet HaShahar", rocket launch bases in "Yesod HaMa’ala", an armored gathering area in "Sha’al", and command centers in "Shamir".

By the night of Thursday, 31-10-2024, enemy forces were forced to withdraw behind the borders, utilizing military helicopters to evacuate their dead and wounded, as well as specialized equipment to retrieve the destroyed tanks.

On Saturday, during an attempt by an "israeli" force to advance across the border toward the village of Houla, our fighters spotted a convoy of approximately 40 military vehicles (tanks, armored vehicles, and personnel carriers) led by two bulldozers, aiming to clear a path for further advancement. As the force reached the range of our fighters, the bulldozers were struck by two Kornet anti-tank missiles, destroying them and killing and injuring those inside. Under heavy "israeli" artillery cover, the entire convoy retreated to the eastern border of the town. As the convoy regrouped, three successive rocket salvos, spaced five minutes apart, with over 60 rockets, struck the area. The operation successfully achieved its objectives.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Yesterday marked one of the bloodiest days in Lebanon’s history in 32 years. The Israeli government is fast-tracking its genocidal tactics in Lebanon, emboldened by the lack of accountability for its war crimes in Gaza. The Lebanese Health Ministry reports that the death toll in Lebanon has climbed to at least 558 people, including at least 50 children and 94 women, all killed by the Israeli military. Paramedics and firefighters were also among those killed. This morning an Israeli strike hit southern Beirut.

On Saturday, Israeli Cabinet Minister Amichai Chikli announced the government’s plan to unilaterally redraw the Lebanon border, signaling a clear attempt at land theft and mass displacement.

For over a month, humanitarian aid to northern Gaza has been severely restricted by the Israeli military. Today it is bombing Al-Nusairat with tanks. Two family homes were flattened by Israeli weapons, killing four Palestinians. Israeli snipers and quadcopters have occupied Al-Rashid Street near the camp for weeks, forcing hundreds of Palestinians to flee in fear of an impending massacre.

For almost a year, the Israeli military has committed war crimes with the backing of the US government, killing over 42,000 Palestinians, leveling buildings, forcing civilians to flee from their homes and indiscriminately bombing Palestinian families in Gaza. Yesterday, President Biden announced that he is sending additional troops to the Middle East, culminating in 40,000 troops in the region.

We refuse to let the Israeli military replicate the same genocidal tactics it employs in Gaza in Lebanon. The US must end its complicity in Israel’s colonial expansion and war crimes, and uphold Lebanese and Palestinian freedom.

We demand a full arms embargo on all weapons to the Israeli government, and a permanent ceasefire to prevent full-blown regional war. Tell your senators at the link in our bio.

[porterdavis]

Project 2025 (get ready)

“IMMIGRATION:

13. All migrants, including those with pending asylum claims, will be taken into custody and deported immediately by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

14. Birthright citizenship will be ended by executive order. All persons who were born in the US to migrant parents will have their citizenship revoked and will be deported immediately.

15. Border will be closed with no migrants entering the US by moving thousands of US troops from overseas to be stationed on the southern border.

16. Border wall across southern US and Mexico will be completed.

17. All releases into the US of asylum seekers will be ended and Remain in Mexico policy reinstated.

18. Increase criminal penalties for illegal entry.

19. Reinstitute travel ban.”

[thesummerstorms]

It is fascinating to me to imagine Leliana as Divine during Veilguard.

Here is the Southern Chantry, historical tool of Orlesian Imperialism, with a literal hero of the fifth Blight at its head as the South is threatened by Blight (historical catastrophe) and Venatori (with Tevinter being a historical enemy the Orlesians define themselves opposite of).

But even a literal war hero who has fought the Blight head on, who represents the religion and savior-figure they so loudly proclaim devotion to, who has years and years of experience as a Spymaster and in playing the Game, who to some extent is responsible for the current ruler holding the throne, cannot meaningfully unite them against the threat.

And yeah, maybe it's because she pushed hard on reform, made enemies early and fast, because her alliances were shaken loose in a way the grasping could take advantage of.

But we watch on screen as Fereldan builds an alliance with the Chaisind and Avvar who the have historically rejected.

(Message From the Front: The Fall of Weisshaupt: "When I returned south after speaking with you, I sent envoys to both the Chasind and the Avvar. They and the leaders of Ferelden have agreed to an alliance, at least until this present threat passes.")

As the Free Marches come together under a single banner and start marching South towards the blight to help fight it back when the Inquisitor is forced to abandon southern Fereldan and take refuge in Skyhold.

(Message From the Front: The Drums of War: "The Free Marches have unified under a single banner and even now march south to aid us in our struggle.")

Yet Orlais is sold out from within by its own rebels seeking power...or to maintain their power.

(Message From the Front: The Fight For the South: "In Orlais, a splinter faction of the nobility has made common cause with the Venatori and launched an assault on both the royal forces of Orlais and the border keeps of Ferelden.")

Orlais has been so long fixed on the "Game", on personal advantage, on traditions rooted in keeping the powerful in power, that they can't unite at a meaningful level to fight back, even if the Divine of the Orlesian Chantry is a Hero of the Blight.

(Message From the Front: The Drums of War: "The Free Marches have unified under a single banner and even now march south to aid us in our struggle.")

"But those are the rebels-"

Yes. But! The Inquisitor's letter flat out states that her alliance is trying to help the Orlesian Royal Army and they refuse to cooperate.

(Message From the Front: The Tide Turns: Not all have chosen to ally so openly and directly with us. The Venatori and the Orlesian royal armies clash daily in Orlais. Val Royeaux is now under control of the rebels, and from there the Venatori launch attacks as far east as Kirkwall. Yet Orlais still refuses to join us. We've sent several companies to assist, but while the Orlesian troops don't attack them, they refuse to coordinate tactics.)

Now, the good news is that Orlais has apparently finally pushed back the Venatori enough to take some power back by the last letter from the Inquisitor.

(Message From the Front: The Drums of War: "and reports from Orlais suggest that the Venatori have been fought to a standstill.")

But what position are they going to be in now? Literally everyone else seems to have united on some level to work together. The Rivaini pirates are shipping goods from Ostwick to both the Fereldan Alliance and to Antiva. We have two potentially powerful new multi-people alliances in play. Nevarra, Antiva, and Rivain all have had some sort of presence in the final battle in Minrathous and have been connected together through Rook.

But Orlais has only managed to spend its resources fighting itself and you can bet everyone is going to remember their unwillingness to cooperate later. So now they're one Civil War weaker but also out considerable political influence given that by sitting out they missed out on any alliance building.

Nevarra has been tense rivals with Orlais for years anyway, the Fereldans are still distrustful, and the Free Marches are united enough to push back.

If Orlais tries to walk right back into the game, I think they might find things are not the same old favorable position they've long held for themselves.

[girlactionfigure]

🔷 IDF DESTROYS COMBAT COMPOUND WITH EIGHT WEAPONS STORAGE FACILITIES IN SOUTHERN LEBANON; KFIR BRIGADE ELIMINATES TERRORISTS AND DISMANTLES INFRASTRUCTURE IN NORTHERN GAZA; TWO JERUSALEM RESIDENTS INDICTED FOR COLLABORATION WITH HEZBOLLAH DURING WAR

🔷 The IDF’s 188th Brigade continues operations in southern Lebanon in adherence to the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon. Combat engineering troops uncovered and dismantled a combat compound containing eight weapons storage facilities interconnected by underground infrastructure. The facilities housed communication and electrical equipment, anti-tank missiles, explosives, and computers. The soldiers dismantled the compound, confiscated the weapons, and neutralized a firing position aimed at northern Israeli communities, which also contained a weapons storage facility.

🔹The Kfir Brigade, under the 162nd Division, concluded operations in Beit Lahia, successfully eliminating numerous terrorists and dismantling above- and below-ground terror infrastructure.

This morning, intelligence led troops to an area west of Beit Hanoun, where ground forces began operations following precision strikes by the IAF and IDF artillery. Several terrorists were neutralized, and additional infrastructure was dismantled as part of ongoing activities in northern Gaza.

❗Two Jerusalem residents, Abd al-Salam Qawasameh and Taar Asili, have been indicted for collaborating with Hezbollah during the ongoing conflict. The indictment reveals that they maintained contact with a Hezbollah operative using the alias "Diana" via a WhatsApp group. Despite knowing her affiliation with Hezbollah, they continued sharing sensitive information about Israel.

Qawasameh reportedly sent photos from Caesarea, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resides, while Asili shared news articles about Israel's security situation. Additionally, the two were asked to contact a senior Hezbollah intelligence officer. Although Asili purchased a SIM card for communication, he refused a request to photograph Metula, a northern border town.

Qawasameh faces additional charges for weapons offenses after posing with an assault rifle owned by a Palestinian gunman during a visit to Jenin in Judea and Samaria. Both are charged with "contact with a foreign agent" and passing information to the enemy. The prosecution has requested their remand be extended until the end of legal proceedings.

[whencyclopedia]

Anglo-Nepalese War

The Anglo-Nepalese War (aka Gurkha War, 1814-16) saw the British East India Company (EIC) lose several battles against Nepalese Gurkhas before finally securing victory in a hard-fought campaign that, for the first time, extended EIC control beyond the borders of India. Impressed with the Gurkhas' fighting abilities, the British have enrolled them in their armies ever since.

East India Company Expansion

The East India Company was founded in 1600, and by the mid-18th century, it was benefiting from its trade monopoly in India to make its shareholders immensely rich. The Company was effectively the colonial arm of the British government in India, but it protected its interests using its own private army and hired troops from the regular British army. By the 1750s, the Company was keen to expand its trade network and begin a more active territorial control in the subcontinent.

Robert Clive (1725-1774) won a famous victory for the EIC against the ruler of Bengal, Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah (b. 1733) at the Battle of Plassey in June 1757. The Nawab was replaced by a puppet ruler, the state's massive treasury was confiscated, and the systematic exploitation of Bengal's resources and people began. The EIC won another key contest in October 1764 with victory at the Battle of Buxar (aka Bhaksar) against the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II (r. 1760-1806). The emperor then awarded the EIC the right to collect land revenue (dewani) in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. This was a major development and ensured the Company now had vast resources to expand and protect its traders, bases, armies, and ships.

The EIC kept on expanding through diplomacy and military conquest. Victories came against the southern kingdom of Mysore across the three Anglo-Mysore Wars (1767-1799). Intertwined with these conflicts were the three Anglo-Maratha Wars (1775-1819) against the Maratha Confederacy of Hindu princes in central and northern India. Once again the EIC came out as the winner. The Company had extended its control of the subcontinent not only through direct territorial possessions but also through a policy of Subsidiary Alliances, where rulers of the Indian princely states were obliged to have an EIC resident at their court, host and pay for an EIC garrison, and hand over the direction of foreign policy to the British. With large parts of India now in its grasp, the ever-avaricious East India Company and its new Governor-General the Marquess of Hastings (in office 1813-23) began to look to the far north for further opportunities for profit. Consequently, the next EIC target was Nepal, and it declared war on the kingdom in April 1814.

Continue reading...

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hello! I've been enjoying your writing references and notes, thank you for sharing! I was wondering, do you have any for something set during the Civil War? I've been sitting on the idea of writing a short story inspired by Little Women and I want to do it some justice at least. I would be happy with whatever you can offer <3

Writing Notes: The American Civil War

A four-year war (1861–65) between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America.

The two sides fought over the enslavement of African Americans and the rights of individual states.

The economy of the South relied on enslaving Black people to work on plantations of cotton and tobacco, while in the industrialized North, public opinion was in favor of ending slavery.

The war ended in 1865 with a Union victory.

THE UNION AND THE CONFEDERACY

By February 1861, 7 southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) had broken away from the rest of the US.

On 4 February, they agreed to form a separate government, the Confederate States of America.

The first shots of the war were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina on 12 April, and within 3 months, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee had joined the Confederates.

23 states remained in the Union, including the slave-owning “border states”.

NEW TECHNOLOGY

The US Civil War was one of the first industrial wars in history, making use of modern technologies developed during the course of the 19th century. The war was fought across a wide area, so railways were critically important in carrying troops and supplies to where they were needed on the front lines. Generals were able to communicate with each other by telegraph.

Weapons. Fast-firing repeating rifles, such as the Spencer rifle, were used for the first time in the Civil War. The widely used “Napoleon” field gun could hit a target up to 1,600 m (5,250 ft) away. Also developed at this time was the Gatling gun, an early machine gun.

Ironclad battleships. Steam-powered battleships protected by iron or steel plates were known as ironclads. The first-ever battle between ironclads was fought in the Civil War in 1862, on the James River estuary in Virginia.

Modern Communications. In the Civil War, railroads moved troops around, aerial balloons spied across enemy lines, and the telegraph (above) sent and received instant information. Its receiver machine recorded messages on paper tape in Morse code, which uses dots and dashes to represent numbers and letters of the alphabet.

WAR PHOTOGRAPHY

The Civil War was one of the first conflicts to be extensively photographed. Dozens of photographers toured the battlefields, and their stark images of soldiers, dead and alive, brought shocking scenes of the war to the public around the world.

A Continental War. Most of the fighting in the war took place in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania in the east. There were also battles in Kentucky and Tennessee in the west and down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. In 1864, General William T. Sherman (above) conducted a major campaign in Georgia and the Carolinas.

TIMELINE

A nation divided. When 7 US states seceded (broke away) from the Union to form the Confederacy, President Lincoln refused to recognize the new government, and called on them to rejoin the Union. The Confederates refused, and tried to gain control of federal forts in the south. The stage was set for a bloody war that would last for the next 4 years.

12 April, 1861: Fort Sumter attacked. Confederate troops under Brigadier General Beauregard fired on Union soldiers who were guarding Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. These were the first shots to be fired in the Civil War.

17 September, 1862: Battle of Antietam. The bloodiest day of fighting in the entire war took place at the Battle of Antietam, in which nearly 23,000 soldiers were wounded or killed. The Union army suffered the most casualties, but managed to halt the advance of General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate forces into the Union state of Maryland. The next day Lee was allowed to lead his shattered army back to Virginia.

13 December, 1862: Confederate victory. Fortune swung back to the Confederate side at the Battle of Fredericksburg, in Virginia. General Burnside, newly appointed by Lincoln to command the Union army, led 120,000 troops to attack a Confederate force of 80,000 – by far the largest number of men to meet in any conflict of the Civil War. Burnside was decisively defeated – a victory that gave fresh hope to the Confederates and led to complaints that the Union’s generals were doing a bad job.

1 January, 1863: All slaves to be free. President Lincoln gave new purpose and direction to the war by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. This was an order freeing all slaves in the Confederate states. Of course, this could not happen until the Union had won the war against the Confederates, but his words would eventually lead to the freeing of millions of African American slaves.

3 March, 1863: First African-American regiment. The first official regiment of African-American soldiers, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, was formed to fight in the Union army.

4 July, 1863: Vicksburg captured. Union troops captured the Confederate fortress of Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, after a 2-month siege. It was a major turning point in the war, coming a day after the Union victory at Gettysburg. The Union now controlled the length of the Mississippi River, dividing Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas from the rest of the Confederate states, and cutting off supplies.

15 November, 1864: March to the Sea. The capture of Atlanta in Georgia by Union General William T. Sherman in September was a heavy blow to the Confederates. Although deep inside enemy territory, Sherman decided to march his army all the way from Atlanta to the coast at Savannah. He ordered his men to live off the land and destroy farms and factories on their way. This brutal “scorched earth” policy inflicted lasting damage.

9 April, 1865: Lee surrenders to Grant. The Confederate capital of Richmond, in Virginia, fell on 3 April. The Virginian Confederate army was exhausted. To avoid further losses, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. By May, all the Confederate armies had stopped fighting. The war was finally over.

14 April, 1865: Assassination of Lincoln. President Lincoln was shot while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. He died the next morning. A funeral train took 14 days to transport his body back for burial in his hometown of Springfield, in Illinois.

The Battle of Gettysburg. The most famous battle of the Civil War was fought over three days, from 1 to 3 July 1863, around the small town of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. The Confederates attacked, confident they would win, but the Union army did not give way and eventually won. The battle had the heaviest casualties in the war. An estimated 51,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or listed as missing. Four months after the battle, President Lincoln visited the site and delivered a famous speech known as the Gettysburg Address. In it, he said that the US was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”.

The Abolition of Slavery. On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all enslaved people in the Confederacy from January 1, 1863. In 1865 Congress passed the 13th Amendment (law change) to the US Constitution, making slavery illegal across the soon-to-be reunited country.

RECONSTRUCTION

African Americans Voting in Richmond in Virginia, 1871

The slow process of rebuilding the economy of the south, left in ruins after the war, is known as Reconstruction. Before rejoining the US, each state of the Confederacy had to agree to amendments to the US Constitution – the supreme law of the nation – that ended slavery, granted citizenship to African Americans, and gave the vote to all male citizens.

Reconstruction ended in 1877, and many southern state governments immediately reversed the new rights given to African Americans, making it hard for them to vote, go to school, or find paid work. They introduced laws that legalized discrimination against Black people that remained in place for almost a century.

Below are objects that serve as evidence of the turmoil leading up to the election and the events that happened immediately after.

Below are objects that show how the Union and the Confederacy dealt with money problems, while also exploring what was considered money then and who produced it.

The objects below belonged to the men and boys who fought on the front lines for both Confederate and Union forces. They represent what soldiers wore, what they ate, how they coped, and what they held dear to them. These items, more often than not, were the only possessions soldiers kept while enlisted; on many are personal touches added by the owner.

Below are a few objects used as weapons by both Confederate and Union armies.

Below are a few objects used by or presented to the leaders of Union and Confederate forces.

For many Americans, both civilian and military, who lived through the conflict, the Civil War was the monumental event of their lifetime. They collected relics as they adjusted to the immediate consequences of the war. The nation grappled with the residual effects of the Civil War for more than a century. Below are objects that evoked different memories from the war.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: Notes & References

It's nice to hear this, thanks so much! <3 Hope these notes help as quick references. Further research might be needed if you're planning to write something more detailed.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By Emanuel Fabian  and Michael Bachner

The Israel Defense Forces revealed Tuesday that even before it officially launched ground operations in southern Lebanon earlier in the day, its troops had conducted dozens of secret cross-border raids throughout the current war, destroying numerous Hezbollah positions, tunnels and sites. The army also disclosed that days after Hamas’s October 7 mass onslaught in southern Israel, thousands of terrorists had been positioned near the Lebanon border in a plan to storm the Galilee and unleash similar carnage there.

The IDF briefed reporters on the new information before IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari held a briefing in Hebrew and in English, presenting images and maps from the foiled mass invasion plan and elaborating on the subsequent covert commando missions in southern Lebanon, which aided the military campaign to dismantle the immediate threat and drive Hezbollah away from the border.

The army said special forces have since then carried out more than 70 small raids, destroying numerous Hezbollah positions, tunnels and thousands of weapons that would have potentially been used in the terror group’s invasion plan.

According to the IDF, troops in the raids over past months silently reached around 1,000 Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon, some of them several kilometers from the border fence, including tunnels and bunkers where the terror group had stored weapons. The IDF said the sites were located both inside Lebanese villages and in forested areas.

The raids have been carried out since early in the Israel-Hamas war, after the IDF said it managed to push back Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force from the border area, enabling Israeli commandos to enter Lebanon with almost no detection. There were no direct clashes with Hezbollah operatives amid any of the raids.

According to IDF assessments, some 2,400 Radwan terrorists and another 500 Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists — trained by Radwan — had been waiting in southern Lebanon villages to attack Israel in the days after Palestinian terror group Hamas carried out its October 7, 2023, mass invasion from Gaza, in which some 1,200 people were murdered in Israel and 251 were kidnapped to the Strip amid widely documented atrocities and systematic targeting of civilians.

[fursasaida]

Tumblr won't turn the URL into a link card for whatever reason, so, here's a Washington Post article about Israel using white phosphorus in Lebanon. Some key points here, full text under the cut:

White phosphorus is technically legal when used to obscure military activities and at a distance from civilians. In this case it was directly targeted at homes in Dheira, a village near the Lebanese border with Israel. 4 homes were incinerated and 9 people injured in this particular attack on 10/16. Residents have been displaced.

Amnesty International has called for this to be treated as a war crime.

The white phosphorus munitions are US-made according to unnamed weapons experts, Amnesty International, and the Post itself. They appear to have been manufactured in 1989 and 1992. The Biden administration claims not to have included white phosphorus in arms transfers to Israel since 10/7.

The IDF claims these were used to create obscuring smoke and not to target civilians; they possess safer munitions that would do the same thing without contaminating bodies, soil, and buildings, but did not use those.

A part that deserves highlighting in full: "Israeli forces continued to shell the town with white phosphorus munitions for hours, residents said, trapping them in their homes until they could escape around 7 a.m. the next morning. Residents now refer to the attack as the 'black night.' Most fled the town when the shelling stopped, returning during a week-long pause in fighting and leaving again when it resumed. Uday Abu Sari, a 29-year-old farmer, said in an interview that he was trapped in his home for five hours during the shelling and was unable to breathe because of the smoke. He suffered respiratory problems for days after the attack. 'Emergency services told us to put something that was soaked in water on our faces, which helped a bit. I couldn’t see my finger in front of my face,' he said. 'The whole village became white.'"

"White phosphorus fell onto several homes and ignited fires, incinerating furniture and stripping appliances to scorched metal. Remnants of the sticky, black chemical littered the ground 40 days after the attack and combusted when residents kicked at it."

US officials, as usual, expressed "concern" and an intention to "learn more," which of course means nothing.

As a reminder, this is not a unique attack on Lebanese soil since the slaughter started. "Israel has used the munition more than 60 times in Lebanon’s border areas in the past two months, according to data collected by ACLED, a group that monitors war zones. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Dec. 2 that Israel’s use of the munition has 'killed civilians and produced irreversible damage to more than 5 million square meters of forests and farmland, in addition to damaging thousands of olive trees.'"

By William Christou, Alex Horton and Meg Kelly

Updated December 11, 2023 at 3:48 p.m. EST | Published December 11, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST

DHEIRA, Lebanon — Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon that injured at least nine civilians in what a rights group says should be investigated as a war crime, according to a Washington Post analysis of shell fragments found in a small village.

A journalist working for The Post found remnants of three 155-millimeter artillery rounds fired into Dheira, near the border of Israel, which incinerated at least four homes, residents said. The rounds, which eject felt wedges saturated with white phosphorous that burns at high temperatures, produce billowing smoke to obscure troop movements as it falls haphazardly over a wide area. Its contents can stick to skin, causing potentially fatal burns and respiratory damage, and its use near civilian areas could be prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Of the nine injured in Israel’s attack on Dheira, at least three were hospitalized, one for days.

Lot production codes found on the shells match the nomenclature used by the U.S. military to categorize domestically produced munitions, which show they were made by ammunition depots in Louisiana and Arkansas in 1989 and 1992. The light green color and other markings — like “WP” printed on one of the remnants — are consistent with white phosphorous rounds, according to arms experts.

The M825 smoke rounds, fired from 155mm howitzers, have legitimate use on the battlefield, including signaling friendly troops, marking targets and producing white smoke that conceals soldiers from the eyes of enemy forces. The rounds are not intended for use as incendiary weapons.

The weapons are part of billions of dollars in U.S. military arms that flow to Israel every year, which has fueled Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, launched after the militants attacked on Oct. 7. At least 17,700 people, many of them civilians, have been killed since the Israeli operation began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Following publication of this story, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday the administration is “concerned” about the use of white phosphorous munitions and that they would be “asking questions to try to learn a bit more.”

Tensions along Lebanon’s southern border between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia, have boiled over from a simmer to near-daily exchanges of fire in the weeks since Oct. 7.

Dheira, a town of 2,000, has become a focal point for fighting. Just across the border from an Israeli radar tower, it has been used as a staging ground for Hezbollah’s attacks against Israel. At least 94 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border since tensions escalated, according to data released on Dec. 5 by the Health Ministry — 82 have been militants, according to Hezbollah. In addition, at least 11 Israelis have been killed, most of them soldiers.

Photos and videos verified by Amnesty International and reviewed by The Post show the characteristic ribbons of white phosphorus smoke falling over Dheira on Oct. 16.

Israeli forces continued to shell the town with white phosphorus munitions for hours, residents said, trapping them in their homes until they could escape around 7 a.m. the next morning. Residents now refer to the attack as the “black night.”

Most fled the town when the shelling stopped, returning during a week-long pause in fighting and leaving again when it resumed.

Uday Abu Sari, a 29-year-old farmer, said in an interview that he was trapped in his home for five hours during the shelling and was unable to breathe because of the smoke. He suffered respiratory problems for days after the attack.

“Emergency services told us to put something that was soaked in water on our faces, which helped a bit. I couldn’t see my finger in front of my face,” he said. “The whole village became white.”

White phosphorus ignites when in contact with oxygen and burns at temperatures up to 1,500 degrees, which can cause severe injuries. The chemicals left in the body can damage to internal organs, sometimes fatally, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

It is unclear why the Israeli military fired the rounds into the evening, as smoke would have little practical use at night and there were no Israeli troops on the Lebanese side of the border to mask with smokescreens. Residents speculated that the phosphorus was meant to displace them from the village and to clear the way for future Israeli military activity in the area.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces wrote that white phosphorous shells launched by Israel are used to create smokescreens, not for targeting or causing fires. It said its use of the weapon “complies and goes beyond the requirements of international law.”

Israeli forces possess safer alternatives, such as M150 artillery rounds, which produce screening smoke without the use of white phosphorous.

The U.S. origin of the shells was verified by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The same manufacturing codes also appear on white phosphorus shells lined up next to Israeli artillery by the city of Sderot, near the Gaza Strip, in an Oct. 9 photo.

The United States is under an obligation to track the behavior of its partners and allies who receive its assistance in order to comply with U.S. law, humanitarian law experts said. The use of white phosphorus smoke is permitted if used for legitimate military operations, but like other weapons, its misuse can violate laws of armed conflict. Rights groups have warned its use should be restricted around civilians because fire and smoke can be spread to populated areas.

“The fact that U.S.-produced white phosphorus is being used by Israel in south Lebanon should be of great concern to U.S. officials,” Tirana Hassan, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote in an email. “[Congress] should take reports of Israel’s use of white phosphorus seriously enough to reassess U.S. military aid to Israel.”

The United States is not conducting real-time assessments of Israel’s adherence to the laws of war, Biden administration officials said.

“Anytime that we provide items like white phosphorous to another military, it is with a full expectation that it’ll be used in keeping with...legitimate purposes and in keeping with the law of armed conflict,” Kirby said.

It is unclear when the United States delivered the munitions to Israel. The U.S. has not provided white phosphorous munitions to Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Monday.

“When it comes to our relationship with Israel, we’ll continue to communicate to them the importance of mitigating civilian harm,” Ryder said, adding that the department could not yet verify the weapons were from U.S. stocks.

White phosphorus fell onto several homes and ignited fires, incinerating furniture and stripping appliances to scorched metal. Remnants of the sticky, black chemical littered the ground 40 days after the attack and combusted when residents kicked at it.

In 2009, Human Rights Watch documented Israel’s use of U.S.-made white phosphorus munitions in violation of international law in its 22-day offensive in Gaza. At least one of the shells found by The Post in Dheira was from the same batch of white phosphorus used by Israel in 2009, according to lot production codes.

In 2013, the Israeli military pledged to stop using white phosphorus on the battlefield, saying it would transition to gas-based smoke shells.

Israel has used the munition more than 60 times in Lebanon’s border areas in the past two months, according to data collected by ACLED, a group that monitors war zones. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Dec. 2 that Israel’s use of the munition has “killed civilians and produced irreversible damage to more than 5 million square meters of forests and farmland, in addition to damaging thousands of olive trees.”

Tyler Pager aboard Air Force One, Missy Ryan in Washington and Mohamad El Chamaa in Beirut contributed to this report.

[mariacallous]

It is a study in contrasts—and of just how dysfunctional the U.S. political system has become, even in the conduct of foreign policy. Over the last several years, around the same period of time U.S. President Joe Biden was confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin, his predecessor Donald Trump was secretly talking to him and opposing U.S. military aid to Ukraine, according to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, War.

Among the shocking new disclosures in the book, a copy of which was obtained by Foreign Policy ahead of its release date next week, Woodward reports that Trump spoke to Putin as many as seven times after he left the presidency and that at one point, in 2024, Trump told a senior aide to leave the room at his mansion in Mar-a-Lago so “he could have what he said was a private phone call” with the Russian leader.

It was not clear how many of the other calls to Putin occurred before or after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. But the disclosures raise new questions about whether the former president might have violated the Logan Act, which forbids a U.S. citizen from communicating “without authority” from the federal government with foreign officials to “influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government” in a dispute with the United States. Such questions date back to suggestions that incoming Trump officials had contacts with Russia even before he was inaugurated in January 2017.

With the U.S. presidential election less than a month away, the book resurrects unsettling questions about Trump’s relationship to Putin and the largely unresolved mystery of the former president’s business and financial ties to Russia.

In particular, the Woodward disclosures raise fresh questions about Trump’s well-documented deference to Putin, especially since Trump has promised to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war “in 24 hours” if elected, hinting broadly that he would do so by forcing Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and forswear joining NATO, which is partly what Putin demands. Going back to just days before the invasion, as Russian troops were amassing on the Ukrainian border, the former president went out of his way to praise Putin for his aggression. “I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine … as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump told a right-wing radio program on Feb. 22, 2022. He also suggested that Putin’s effort to subsume Ukraine could be a model for how the United States should deal with its immigration problem. “We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen,” Trump said.

As Woodward writes, “Trump’s unwillingness to criticize Putin was not a one-off incident but a consistent character trait.” Woodward describes his source on Trump’s post-presidential phone calls to Putin as a single anonymous Trump aide, but when he asked Jason Miller, the former president’s top 2024 campaign aide, about the calls, Miller did not outright deny Woodward’s account but said, “I’d push back on that.” Asked further whether Trump could resolve the Ukraine war with one phone call, as the former president has occasionally claimed, Miller said:

“I think he could. He knows the pressure points. He knows what is going to motivate both sides, and I think he can do that with one phone call each,” meaning to Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, respectively.

Woodward also quotes Dan Coats, Trump’s former director of national intelligence, as saying he himself has long been mystified by Trump’s relationship with Putin. “His reaching out and never saying anything bad about Putin. For me … it’s scary,” Coats told Woodward.

Asked to comment on Woodward’s reporting, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded with a lengthy personal broadside against the journalist. “None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Cheung said in a statement, adding that Trump is already “successfully” suing Woodward “because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously.” Cheung added: “Woodward is a total sleazebag who has lost it mentally, and he’s slow, lethargic, incompetent, and overall a boring person with no personality.”

Cheung did not mention that Trump has agreed to numerous interviews with Woodward, who is regarded as Washington’s leading chronicler of presidents, going back to 1989.

Woodward also supplies some harrowing new details on Biden’s “missiles of October” moment in 2022, parts of which have been previously reported. In the fall of that year, six months into Putin’s faltering invasion of Ukraine and in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Biden administration began receiving alarming intelligence that the Russian president was increasingly desperate over his battlefield losses. New intelligence reports indicated that there was a 50 percent chance Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon, an assessment that was dramatically up from 5 percent and then 10 percent earlier in the war, Woodward writes.

According to the book, Biden swiftly directed his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan: “On all channels, get on the line with the Russians. … Tell them what we will do in response.” Biden told his team to use “language that is threatening without being directly threatening,” Woodward writes. “We need to open up a channel,” Biden reportedly said, “not on negotiating Ukraine but on the United States and Russia avoiding a cataclysm.” In a phone conversation in October, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned his Russian counterpart, then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu: “Our leaders and your leaders have repeatedly said a nuclear war can never be won and should never be fought. This could put us on a path to confrontation that would have existential implications for you and for us. Don’t step on that slippery slope.”

Austin further told Shoigu that if nuclear weapons were used, “all the restraints that we have been operating under in Ukraine would be reconsidered,” according to Woodward. “This would isolate Russia on the world stage to a degree you Russians cannot fully appreciate.”

When Shoigu responded that he didn’t like being threatened, Austin countered: “Mr. Minister, I am the leader of the most powerful military in the history of the world. I don’t make threats,” according to Woodward’s account. Two days later, Shoigu called back and falsely claimed the Ukrainians were planning to use a “dirty bomb,” which the United States believed the Kremlin was putting out as a pretext to deploy a nuclear weapon. “We don’t believe you,” Austin said, according to Woodward. “We don’t see any indications of this, and the world will see through this. … Don’t do it.”

Shoigu responded, “I understand,” according to the book. Woodward also corroborates other accounts, including a book published by CNN’s Jim Sciutto in March, The Return of Great Powers, that previously reported Biden sent other emissaries as well, such as CIA Director Bill Burns, to warn the Russians and enlisted the help of major nations—especially Russia’s No. 1 partner, China—to discourage Moscow from using nuclear weapons. (During a visit to China in late April, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised Beijing’s “important” influence in “moving Russia away” from the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, even as Blinken harshly criticized Beijing for assisting Russia in other ways.) As Woodward recounts it, Colin Kahl, a senior Pentagon official at the time, later described that period in the fall of 2022 as “probably the most hair-raising moment of the whole war.”

It was also a moment when Biden—to a degree not fully disclosed previously—may have proved his mettle as a world leader, one that was reminiscent of nothing so much as President John F. Kennedy’s stand against Moscow during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. It’s noteworthy that Woodward also quotes Biden as being critical of the president he served as vice president, Barack Obama, suggesting that Obama’s relatively mild response to Putin’s partial occupation of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014 had been a terrible mistake. “That’s why we are here. We fucked it up,” Biden reportedly said. “Barack never took Putin seriously. … We gave Putin license to continue! Well, I’m revoking his fucking license!”

In the two and a half years since Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden has often been criticized for temporizing over his response and failing to offer the Ukrainians sufficient defensive weaponry quickly enough. He has hesitated in sending first-generation main battle tanks such as the M1A1 Abrams, long-range precision artillery, and fighter jets such as the F-16—though ultimately he has done so. And in October 2022, after Ukraine had launched its successful Kharkiv counteroffensive, Biden warned Americans of a potential nuclear “Armageddon,” saying it was the first time since the Cuban missile crisis that there had been a “direct threat” of nuclear weapons being deployed.

At the time, some people were skeptical, especially inside Ukraine, whether Putin was bluffing. But Woodward’s citation of U.S. intelligence estimates—which proved to be strikingly accurate about Putin’s intentions before he invaded—is eye-opening. And more recently, the Russian leader has spelled out with more specificity what might trigger his use of tactical nuclear weapons, especially as Ukrainian forces have advanced into Russia’s Kursk region. In September, Putin said a nuclear response might be justified if the West allows Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian territory with Western long-range missiles that would need Western satellite and targeting support.

The degree to which Ukraine has fought off Russia’s advances, causing hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties, is also very worrisome in view of another conversation that Woodward recounts between U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. Asked to state the conditions for a Russian use of nuclear weapons, Gerasimov responded that one of them involved “the right to use tactical nuclear weapons in the event of catastrophic battlefield loss.” Milley responded at the time that “none of those conditions are going to obtain.”

But they could before long.

Thus, the world now has a better idea why Biden has acted as he has, even as questions about Trump’s relationship with Putin only grow. During his rise in national politics, Trump has repeatedly denied that he has any personal connection to the Russian leader that might suggest Putin has any leverage over him, even as he has refused to criticize Putin.

Yet, in recent years, both a Justice Department investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller and a bipartisan report by the then-Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee detailed extensive ties between Trump associates and Russia and identified a close associate of former Trump 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort as a Russian intelligence officer. The Mueller report concluded that it could find no grounds to charge Trump but also said it could not exonerate him.

Woodward reports that Putin said at an economic conference in Russia in September: “Mr. Trump says he will resolve all burning issues within several days, including the Ukrainian crisis. We cannot help but feel happy about it.”

Other investigations and news reports have detailed how dependent Trump’s failing businesses had grown to become on financing from Russia and former Soviet republics before he ran for president.

[nikkoliferous]

The UN’s top aid official has said the Israeli military campaign in southern Gaza has been just as devastating as in the north, creating “apocalyptic” conditions and ending any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations.

Martin Griffiths, the UN emergency relief coordinator, said he was speaking on behalf of the entire international aid community in saying the continuing offensive had robbed aid workers of any significant means of helping the 2.3 million people of Gaza, other than to call for an immediate end to the fighting.

His comments came as the Israeli military said it had stormed southern Gaza’s main city in the most intense day of fighting so far, and hospitals struggled to cope with scores of dead and wounded Palestinians.

“What we’re saying today is: that’s enough now. It has to stop,” Griffiths said in an interview with the Guardian, adding that the small amount of aid being allowed into Gaza could no longer be distributed, since the Israeli ground offensive had spread to southern Gaza and the city of Khan Younis, bringing the humanitarian operation effectively to an end.

“It isn’t really a statistically significant operation any more,” said Griffiths, who is also UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs. “It’s a bit of a patch on a wound and it doesn’t do the job, and it would be an illusion for the world to think that the people in Gaza can be helped by the humanitarian operation under these conditions.

“This is an apocalyptic situation now, because these are the remnants of a nation being driven into a pocket in the south.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a ground operation into northern Gaza on 27 October, 20 days after Hamas militants killed 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, in a cross-border attack. Israel told Palestinian civilians to move into southern Gaza for their own safety before the ground assault, but the south also remained under bombardment. After the breakdown of a week-long ceasefire on 1 December, tanks and infantry have moved into the south, focusing on Khan Younis. The IDF said its troops had reached the heart of the city on Tuesday.

Joe Biden and his top officials had called on Israel to conduct the campaign in the south in a fundamentally different way from the north, with far more attention paid to avoiding civilian casualties, as the Gaza death toll passed 16,000 according to figures issued by the Hamas media office.

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, pointed to an IDF plan to split Gaza into small districts and warn residents of impending military operations in their districts, as a “quite unusual step for a modern military” to avoid civilian deaths. But amid fighting that the IDF said has been the most intense of the ground offensive so far, the civilian toll has remained very high.

US officials said on Monday it was too early to draw conclusions about the conduct of the war in southern Gaza, but Griffiths said it was already clear there had been no improvement and that US diplomatic efforts to influence the IDF had failed.

“The way in which the military operation in the south has been carried out is very similar to what we saw in the north,” he said. “US diplomacy was very much focused on this and [secretary of state] Tony Blinken spoke about it publicly. It does not seem to have worked at all, and so the pace of destruction in the south is as relentless as we see in the north.

“And so we’re left doing very, very little, and frankly facing the inescapable truth which is this is no longer a humanitarian operation, trying to save lives for the people of Gaza. We’ll stay. We’re not leaving … but please don’t think that the humanitarians can save the day. They can’t.”

Speaking in el-Arish, near Egypt’s border with Gaza, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, said that civilian toll remained a primary concern for the Biden administration.

“First, as Israel’s military operations continue, Palestinian civilians must be protected,” Power told journalists after overseeing the delivery of 36,000 (16,330 kg) of US humanitarian relief supplies.

“Far too many innocent civilians have been killed. Some parents in Gaza are writing names on their children’s legs, so that they can be identified if they or their families are killed. Other parents are having their children split up, sheltering at different locations, putting them with different relatives, so as to increase the chances that at least some of them will survive. No parent should ever have to make choices like that. Military operations need to be conducted in a way that distinguishes fighters from civilians.”

The UN had sent the coordinates of UN schools and other institutions to the IDF and Hamas, identifying them as havens for civilians, but Griffiths echoed the comments of other UN officials this week, that there was no longer anywhere safe for Palestinians to take shelter in Gaza.

Griffiths said: “I had a 10-point plan last week – it makes me embarrassed to even think about it now – as to how we would respond when people came south. There’s no 10-point plan any more because it’s dependent on a certain number of deconfliction institutions being safe for people to live in. They don’t exist.”

He said that with no safe havens for civilians to gather, there was nowhere where aid could be delivered and distributed. About 100 trucks of humanitarian supplies have been crossing into Gaza daily since the weekend, but Griffiths said it was no longer possible for workers to reach the crossing point at Rafah to unload them or distribute the aid anywhere else on the Gaza Strip.

“There’s a logic to this, which is horrific and tragic and frankly apocalyptic,” he said. “And I can’t think of a better way to create a generation of anger and extremism than this.”

[drsonnet]

The Chilling Testimony of a U.S. Neurosurgeon Who Went to Gaza to Save Lives

Haaretz: Netta Ahituv May 9, 2024

When everyone who was able to flee from Gaza was doing so, Dr. David Hasan made the reverse journey. His story is a must-read for every Israeli

At the end of December 2023, when everyone who was able to flee from the Gaza Strip was doing so, Prof. David Hasan made the reverse journey. Hasan, a senior neurosurgeon and an esteemed researcher at Duke University in North Carolina, decided to fly to Cairo and from there to make his way to Rafah and enter Gaza.

"Until the war broke out, I was focused on advancing my career and taking care of my family," Hasan, who is 50, tells Haaretz in a video interview. "But this situation – which touched me from both sides [of the border] – overwhelmed me emotionally and pulled me in. I felt I had to do something to help."

Hasan was a member of the first medical team – consisting of 18 physicians from the United States, Canada and England – to enter the Strip after the start of the war. They arrived through Rahma Worldwide (an American humanitarian organization) and the organization Medical Aid for Palestine, under the auspices of the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

"The UN and WHO facilitated our entry and assisted with regard to the medications and surgical equipment we brought with us," Hasan says. "But they also informed us in advance that once we entered Gaza, they would have no way of providing us with protection." The doctors were asked to sign a document waiving the UN of any responsibility for their welfare, which, he says, "made the situation all the more threatening."

Their mission was to get to the European Gaza Hospital, near Khan Yunis in the southern Strip, and spend a week there performing surgery on adults and children. Then, less than two months ago, Hasan entered Gaza again on a similar mission, and saw firsthand the transformation that had taken place there since his previous visit.

"The first thing you see in Rafah," he relates, "is miles and miles of hanging fabrics – the tents of the displaced people, which are erected against the background of the ruins of buildings. When you turn onto Saladin Road, which is the main road connecting Gaza's north and south, suddenly you see an ocean of people. These are the displaced people who live there now. As you get closer to the hospital, you see more and more people, and more and more tents."

The hospital itself looked like a refugee camp, Hasan says. "I was confused, because I had never seen so many people living inside a hospital. Every corner there was occupied by a group of people. They made use of every available item – a small curtain, a staircase, a plastic chair – and turned it into their living space. Entire families huddled on squares of two meters by two meters, and ate, drank and slept there. Walking in the hospital, you had to be careful not to step on people."

On the day he entered the Gaza Strip in December, Hasan notes, he didn't see Israeli troops or hear explosions. "I thought the war was in some kind of lull. But as soon as evening fell, heavy shelling started, and I realized that there were many Israeli forces around the hospital – you just don't see them during the day. The noise of a one-ton bomb is deafening. The first time one was dropped nearby, I happened to be standing on a stool, and I fell off, because the building shook so hard. It went on like that every five or 10 minutes. I asked the local doctors what to do, and they told me that you get used to it and that I should just keep working to distract myself from the anxiety."

Where did you sleep? What did you eat?

"I slept in the hospital, ate mostly energy bars that my wife and daughter had packed for me, and drank mineral water. The water situation there worries me the most, and since returning for the first time, I have talked about water sanitation everywhere and with everyone I can. We lost many patients due to water-related infections."

Immediately upon arriving at the hospital, the physicians began operating. "In the process, we discovered that there weren't enough anesthetics, not enough equipment and not even clean water to wash our hands between operations. Sometimes there were no gloves and sometimes we lacked basic medicines. We were compelled to perform limb amputations without anesthetics and C-sections without sedatives. In order to do as much as we could, we would operate on two patients at the same time in the same operating room."

Throughout his first week there, Hasan relates, there was constant, heavy shelling. "During the night, it was not possible to rescue anyone from the ruins, both because there was no electricity and everything was dark, and also because just being outside was dangerous. So people who were wounded during the night remained where they were until morning. Many of them died from loss of blood or reached us in worse condition because they did not receive immediate treatment. Every morning around 8, a wave of wounded people arrived who had been rescued from the ruins of the night. At that point, around nine out of 10 of them could not be saved.

"The hospital has only 250 beds, so at any given moment, you have to make difficult decisions, as there were about 1,200 wounded. He can be saved, she can't, this wound requires resources that we don't have, we may be able to treat this wound. The feeling is that it would have been possible to save many of the wounded if we had more medical equipment, intensive-care beds and the possibility of hospitalizing them for further treatment."

Are there any of the wounded whom you remember in particular?

"From a medical point of view, I remember a boy of maybe 12 or 13 years old, who arrived with bleeding from his eye, from being hit by shrapnel. It was clear that he needed surgery, but there was a two-hour line for the operating room. During the wait, a main artery burst inside his brain and blood began spurting from his eye. I'd never seen anything like that before. He died, of course.

"From a humanitarian point of view, I remember a boy about 2 years old who was seriously hurt by a bomb. He arrived together with many other children who had been in the same house. The moment I saw him I knew we would not be able to save him, so I had to give the only oxygen canister that was available to another wounded child, who had a better chance of surviving. He was alone, with no one by his side as he was dying. I took a picture of him with the phone and went out to see if anyone knew his relatives. I was told that his whole family was buried under the ruins, and that he was the only one who had been pulled out. I decided that this child would not die without someone noticing and crying over him, and I realized that it would have to be me. I held him to me, I cried over him and I named him 'Jacob.' I vowed that if I have a son, I will name him 'Jacob' in his memory.

"Another case I remember is of three siblings – a 10-year-old boy, a 6-year-old girl and a baby boy of one and a half. According to what I was told, they had been in a house that was surrounded by Hamas activity. Israeli soldiers entered the house at night. In the dark, they thought the father was a Hamas operative and they killed him. The mother ran toward the father and she was killed too. The two parents lay there dead, but outside there was bombing taking place. The three children lay down on their parents until the sun came up. Not until morning did people come to take them out of the house. Someone brought them to the hospital.

"I remember that the eldest son held the little one and calmed him because he was crying, and at the same time took care of his sister, who didn't stop shaking like a leaf in a storm. They were covered with their parents' blood. We cleaned them and I brought them some toys and small dolls that my daughter had asked me to give to the children in Gaza. When I gave them the toys, I saw a small smile and they said to me, 'Thank you, Uncle David.' You could see that they were educated and polite children. I was relieved to learn that at some point a relative came and took them. I will never forget them – the thought of the shocking night they went through and the way the 10-year-old, the senior among them, suddenly became a parental figure."

David Hasan was born and raised in Kuwait to a Muslim Palestinian family, who had immigrated there from the West Bank in 1967, following the Six-Day War. It would not be the family's last war-induced emigration. The second time was in the Gulf War, in 1990, when they relocated from Kuwait to Jordan. Hasan, who had always dreamed of becoming a doctor, was accepted to premed studies in the United States and moved there alone at the age of 18.

Where did your unusual combination of names come from – a Jewish first name and an Arab surname?

"When I moved to the United States, I connected mainly with Jews and Israelis, and they helped me acclimate. They accompanied me through various crises, and I decided to change my name from Emad to David. I also had two Jewish girlfriends, one of whom I accompanied on a visit to Israel. By then, I already had an American passport, but in Israel they wouldn't let me enter and wanted to deport me on the next flight to the United States.

"This was a traumatic experience for my girlfriend, so I insisted on talking to the security manager and told him that instead of kicking me out, they should give me a prize. 'A prize? Why should I give you a prize?' he asked. I replied that thanks to me, my girlfriend had come here for the first time in her life. Jewish donors and the State of Israel pay so much money for Jews from all over the world to visit Israel, and here I was, at my expense, inviting a Jewish woman who would never have visited here if I hadn't insisted on it. He went off, muttering, 'It's only in fucking America that Palestinians go out with Jews.' After a while, I was informed that I could enter Israel. Other than that episode, I remember the visit fondly."

Hasan is married to Lauren Hasan, who worked as a trauma surgeon, and they have a 7-year-old daughter. They live near Duke, a private university in Durham, North Carolina. Hasan does clinical work, research and teaching and is considered a leading expert in the field of cerebrovascular disorders and brain-tumor surgery. He has published more than 270 scientific articles in major journals.

Hasan does not hesitate to attest to his love for Israel and Israelis, and talks about close friends in the country. He also has close ties with the Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights and with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, with both of which, together with UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund), he is trying to promote emergency water purification projects in Gaza. They have already received approval from Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and a promise of funding from USAID.

Asked how he reconciles the Israeli-Palestinian dissonance in his life, he replies simply, "I distance myself from groups that label the Israelis as only one thing and the Palestinians as another. I focus only on moral actions and on ways in which I can help practically."

American universities, including Duke, have become an arena of protests over the war. How do you deal with this?

"We launched an initiative at the university that offers all students the opportunity to be active in assisting victims of the war in all kinds of ways, as they wish, on whichever side they choose. We thought this would allow people to channel their anger into action instead of protesting and arguing among themselves. So far, it seems to be working well. I have already brought in Duke students – Palestinians and Jews – to be part of the water project and work together as a team. I tell my medical students that just as doctors are expected to be blind to their patients' origin, skin color, religion or gender, their attitude toward victims of war should be the same – I suggest to them to think about human beings and not about 'sides.'"

Hasan practices in his life what he preaches to his students. He went to help the Gazans, but the Israeli hostages in the hands of Hamas haunt his thoughts, and he brings up the subject frequently during his interview with Haaretz. On his first visit to Gaza, Hasan hoped he would be able to pressure the appropriate people to talk to members of the Hamas leadership to allow him to visit captives in order to assist them medically. He was warned that even raising the subject would endanger him and the entire delegation, but he insisted. In any event, it didn't happen, of course. No one knows if the request even reached any Hamas officials. Again, in his second visit to Gaza, in March, he put out feelers about the possibility of offering the captives medical aid. Once more, to no avail.

"I walked around the hospital and looked, searched and asked everyone I could if they had seen, heard or knew anything about them [the Israeli hostages]. I also looked for people with weapons, who might be guarding some room, but I didn't see anything like that either. As someone who saw what Gaza looks like aboveground, I can only imagine how terrible the conditions are for the hostages. I assume they don't get enough food, access to a shower or medical services. I also read the testimonies about sexual assault. God knows what condition they are in. I feel pain for them and their families and wish for their release as quickly as possible."

On the last day of the first trip to Gaza, Hasan began sweating and developed a fever. Once he left the Strip, he found out that he was infected with COVID-19, although he had of course been vaccinated. On the second trip, too, he returned home with a mysterious virus. "The situation in Gaza is the perfect storm for viruses – a combination of wounds that become infected because they cannot be cleaned properly, hospitals without proper sanitation and an absence of antibiotics. Add to that water unfit for drinking and a generally appalling sanitary situation. Almost every person we operated on died a few days later, due to infection. It suddenly came to me that surgery was like a death sentence for them. At one point I asked myself what I was doing there if I couldn't save people."

And what was your conclusion?

"That I should continue to do my best. Even if I saved one person, it is still worth the effort. From Judaism I learned that whoever saves one soul, it is as though he saved an entire world. I wanted to be a part of the hope in this conflict and make a difference, even if a small one, for the people who were hurt in it and are considered 'collateral damage.'"

What did you feel when you left the first time?

"Leaving is a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, it's a relief, and on the other hand, I was heartbroken and felt guilty for leaving these people, who need me. I have the option to leave, they don't. From being faceless numbers that I read about in the news, they became for me human beings with names, stories, aspirations and dreams. My consolation is that at least they saw that there were people who cared about them, people who had come a long way and were risking themselves for them, and maybe that would give them hope. I told them that although my body was leaving Gaza, my heart was staying there with them."

In mid-March, some two and a half months after the first visit, Hasan arrived in the Gaza Strip again. This time it was through Medtronic, one of the world's largest producers of medical devices, which was shipping equipment into Gaza. "On Friday I performed a complex operation at Duke Hospital, and within hours I was on my way to Cairo, with half a million dollars worth of medical equipment," Hasan relates. "In Egypt, I was able to get another ton of diapers and baby food, and then went on to Rafah."

There was a palpable difference between the two visits, Hasan relates. To begin with, the second time, there were fewer bombs falling, and they were smaller. On the other hand, however, he encountered more hunger and a higher density of displaced people. "I saw people who had clearly lost a great deal of weight and many more cases of infectious diseases. Mothers arrived with no milk to feed their babies, they were so weak. I remember one woman in her late 20s, an engineer by profession, who told me, 'Dr. David, my baby is crying and I can't do anything. You know Israeli women, right? Maybe you can appeal to them, in the name of the solidarity of women and mothers, to get them to request that at least we can have food for our babies sent to us? Tell them that here too there are mothers with feelings and aspirations for their children.'"

On the second visit, there were fewer medical staff evident, Hasan recalls, and those who were there showed signs of extreme burnout. "They don't earn money, their children are dying at home, and in addition, every trip to the hospital and back entails risking their life or getting bad news from home. Two doctors who worked alongside me returned home after a 24-hour shift and found that their families were buried under the ruins of the house they were in. Many of them felt that they had done their part and now had to worry about the survival of their own families. Those who remained were so exhausted that they developed indifference. A wounded person would arrive, and they would say it was preferable for the person to die, because we didn't have the means for taking care of him. I will not forget taking care of a 5-year-old boy with burns all over his body, who himself told me, 'I wish I was dead. ' At some point I also started to think that it would be better like that, because to be born a weak baby in Gaza means suffering a death sentence in agony."

In addition, Hasan relates, "There was a feeling of chaos, that things were much less organized than last time, that there was no authority or hierarchy. Everyone is worried about their own survival, hunger has an effect, and all kinds of groups were taking advantage of this situation in an awful way. Patients now began arriving who had been shot by [other] Palestinians in fights over food. Imagine hungry people who haven't eaten in days and have children to feed. They will do anything to get food."

The chaos Hasan describes almost cost him his life. On the way from Cairo to Rafah, the Egyptian driver asked him to deliver a bag of sweets to a Palestinian family he knew in Gaza for the Ramadan holiday. Hasan agreed and asked the driver to tell the family to look for him at the hospital. But when he arrived to collect the medical equipment at the border crossing, he discovered that it was not one bag but three huge sacks of sweets. It was certainly not a gift for a family.

He went up to one of the guards at the border, explained the situation and asked him for his advice. The guard explained to him that Egyptian and Gazan merchants were trying to take advantage of the situation to sell things at high prices – the goods he had might fetch thousands of dollars on the black market. He suggested that Hasan leave the sweets there and promised that he and his colleagues would distribute them for free to children for the holiday.

"On the way to the hospital, my phone kept ringing," Hasan recalls. "It turns out that these were the people to whom I was supposed to deliver the sweets. That night, at the hospital, about 10 people with guns suddenly appeared and demanded the candy. They said they were members of Hamas, but later it turned out that they weren't, they just wanted to scare me. It was actually a family that had seized control of a share of the black market. They told me that they knew my name was David and that I was actually an Israeli."

Hasan. "I walked around the hospital and looked, searched and asked everyone if they had seen, heard or knew anything about the Israeli hostages." Allison Joyce/AFP

The Chilling Testimony of a U.S. Neurosurgeon Who Went to Gaza to Save Lives Haaretz Netta... | Middle East (similarworlds.com)

Detroit doctor has never seen anything worse than crisis he witnessed in Gaza

Detroit doctor has never seen anything worse than crisis he saw in Gaza (freep.com)

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A top Hamas commander responsible for the heinous Oct. 7 attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz has been killed by a targeted drone strike, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) announced.

Abd al-Hadi Sabah, who led the infiltration into Kibbutz Nir Oz, which ravaged the community near the Gaza border on Oct. 7, was killed on Tuesday local time in the Western Khan Yunis Battalion.

The IDF said in a release on social media Tuesday that they conducted the intelligence-based strike alongside the Israeli Security Agency (ISA).

The agencies said that Sabah was hiding in a shelter in the designated humanitarian area in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza.

The agencies noted that Sabah was one of the leaders of the infiltration into Kibbutz Nir Oz during Oct. 7 and had been a leader in "numerous terrorist attacks against IDF troops."

"The IDF and ISA will continue to operate against all of the terrorists who took part in the murderous October 7th Massacre," the agencies said.

The IDF said that they took "numerous steps" to mitigate harm to civilians by using "precise munitions, intelligence, and aerial surveillance."

Sabah's leadership on the destruction of Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel left nearly half of the 400 residents murdered or taken captive during the Oct. 7 attack.