Israel Jails US Journalist, Fires On UN Peacekeepers, Bombs Beirut, Kills More Kids, Etc
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
I used to be able to write individual articles about the individual bad things the US empire is involved in around the world. These days I’m increasingly finding it necessary to cram a bunch of them into a single daily write-up to touch on as many of them as I can, just to stay on top of things.
Israel has arrested The Grayzone’s Jeremy Loffredo, an American journalist who had recently done some on the ground reporting on last week’s Iranian missile strikes in Israel.
Israeli news outlet Ynet reports that the charges against Loffredo “include aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy,” which, as his fellow Grayzone reporter Kit Klarenberg notes, can be punished by the death penalty in Israel.
The Grayzone has further clarified in a statement that officially Israeli police are holding the reporter “on suspicion of serious security offenses for publicly publishing… the locations of missile drops near or inside sensitive security facilities, with the aim of bringing this to the notice of the enemy and thereby assisting them in their future attacks.”
Loffredo’s report on the missile strikes features footage of explosions at the IDF’s Nevatim Airbase, as well as shots of the location where a missile landed near the headquarters of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Imagine if an Iranian missile landed right next to the CIA headquarters and the US said was forbidden on pain of death to report anything about this major news story, even for foreign journalists.
Interestingly, these same things have been reported on by other foreign news outlets without any arrests being made. As journalist Dan Cohen noted on Twitter, a report from Nick Schifrin of PBS News also featured footage of the blast site near Mossad headquarters, but Schifrin has not been arrested. Perhaps Loffredo is being singled out more because The Grayzone has been reporting on Israel’s lies and criminality than because of his work in this specific instance.
As of this writing, Loffredo is still jailed.
In other news, Axios reports that the US and Israeli governments have moved closer to a consensus on Israel’s coming “major attack” on Iran, with the Biden administration accepting that this enormous escalation is going to happen despite fears that it will spark a large-scale war.
“The Biden administration accepts that Israel will soon launch a major attack on Iran, but it fears that strikes on certain targets could dramatically escalate the regional war,” writes Axios’ Barak Ravid.
A UN inquiry has accused Israel of “extermination” because of its systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system via “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”
“The report found that Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, detained and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles while tightening their siege on Gaza and restricting permits to leave the territory for medical treatment,” a UN press release reads. “These actions constitute the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment and of the destruction of protected civilian property and the crime against humanity of extermination.”
If past behavior is a reliable indicator, the US will now dismiss these accusations, and Israel will promptly accuse the United Nations of antisemitism.
Israeli forces repeatedly fired on UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Thursday, injuring two UN workers by causing them to fall from a tower that was struck. Israel has killed hundreds of UN humanitarian workers in Gaza over the past year, but extending these attacks to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon is a significant new addition to the list of Israeli criminality.
Israeli airstrikes in a densely populated residential area of central Beirut have reportedly killed at least 22 people, injuring at least 117.
Israel killed at least 28 people in an airstrike on a school where civilians have been sheltering in Gaza, reportedly including many women and children as per usual. Al Jazeera reports that they’re having trouble identifying and counting the dead because the bodies are so unrecognizably shredded. Dozens more were killed elsewhere in Gaza over the last 24 hours.
And then there’s the New York Times report we discussed yesterday adding to the mountains upon mountains of evidence that Israeli forces are routinely, deliberately shooting Palestinian children in the head throughout the Gaza Strip. There is too much evidence that this is happening for anyone to legitimately deny it at this point.
Today the US State Department did not hold a press briefing, which is understandable. If I were in charge of justifying the behavior of the US government and its allies, I wouldn’t want to face the press today either.
UPDATE: The Grayzone reports that Jeremy Loffredo has been released after three days in jail. Israeli police are still holding his passport and forbidding him to leave the country until October 20th while they look through his phone. Further updates to follow.
________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. If you’d prefer to listen to audio of these articles, you can subscribe to them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud or YouTube. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Featured image is a screen grab from The Grayzone YouTube channel.
“The Biden administration accepts that Israel will soon launch a major attack on Iran, but it fears that strikes on certain targets could dramatically escalate the regional war."
White washing bullshit. The NeoCons have been drooling for this bloodshed now for decades. They're still supplying Israel with every fucking bomb it wants. This is them lying to the American people so they can pretend Netanyahu is off his fucking rocker, and Biden tried to do whatever he could to stop him. Horseshit. They know exactly what they're doing - these psychopaths. They hit Iran it's all out war. AND THEY KNOW IT.
Watch "Atrocity Inc" just released by Max Blumenthal and the Grayzone on rumble.com
He exposes the foundational Israeli hoaxes used to justify genocide.