Resistance News Network report from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Iranian response to the zionist entity is a pivotal event that will establish new rules of engagement in the region.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine praised the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s targeting of zionist military sites with dozens of missiles and drones in response to the entity’s aggression against the Iranian consulate in Damascus, describing the Iranian response as a significant pivotal event that will establish new rules of engagement  (https://t.me/PalestineResist/35966) in the region.

The Front confirmed that the legitimate Iranian response broke the prestige of the zionist entity, revealing its fragility and inability to defend itself or restore its deterrence power. At the same time, it confirmed the ability of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the resistance factions to deliver painful strikes to the zionist entity, deepening its internal crisis due to its inability to achieve any of its goals in eliminating the resistance in the Gaza Strip or stopping the strikes directed at it by the resistance in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq.

The Front explained that the rush of the American administration and its partners in Britain, France, Germany, and some of their Arab tails (https://t.me/PalestineResist/35971) in the region to use all their defensive weapons to try to protect the zionist entity from the Iranian missiles and drones confirms the involvement of these parties in the zionist crimes in the region, especially in Gaza. It also reveals that this zionist entity has suffered a strategic defeat, has become humiliated and weak, and is unable to protect itself, now imploring its allies to take on this role.

The Front concluded its statement by affirming that the unprecedented Iranian strikes, the first of their kind in history  (https://t.me/PalestineResist/35973) against the zionist entity, represent an important turning point in the battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood and in favor of the resistance factions. The repercussions of this strike will have pressing effects on the zionist entity to stop its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip after the American administration and its allies realized that any escalation in the region would lead to a regional war where their bases and interests will not be safe, nor will the zionist entity be able to defend itself after the collapse of its deterrence power and its humiliating defeat in front of the resistance in Gaza and other fronts.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Central Media Department

April 14, 2024

 

A group of activists with the Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly shut down the Baltimore City Council’s biweekly meeting in solidarity with the people of Palestine. As the City Council finished its opening presentations and roll call, Reverend Annie Chambers announced that the PPA demanded to be heard regarding the ongoing Zionist genocide in Gaza. 

At that point, four other activists read a statement demanding that the Council end its complicity with genocide and pass a resolution that completely divests the city of Baltimore from the Zionist state and all “Israeli” weapons or technology companies. The demonstrators chanted in support of Palestine until the Council was forced to take a recess. 

The demonstration made clear that these corporate politicians will have no peace until they take action to stand with Gaza. 

As there is a growing trend among the Left to sway away from openly supporting Resistance groups, leftists need to pause and ask themselves what the figures they cherish would do.

To say that the Israeli genocide against Palestinians has been ongoing for six months is inaccurate, as it started in 1948, 76 years ago. Over the past 76 years, Palestinians have exhibited magnificent strength and determination in facing their oppressor, defending themselves against the Israeli occupation, and fighting for their own liberation and freedom. Their resistance has worn several shapes and forms, from a simple rock thrown at an Israeli Merkava to meticulous, groundbreaking operations carried out by Resistance groups.

Ever since local resistance movements emerged, many people have stood up against them for reasons that vary from pure Western propaganda to just simply being pro-imperialist. The saddening stance, however, is the one taken by several leftists around the world who do want a free Palestine but do not support resistance groups.

The very same people praise revolutionaries like Ernesto Che Guevera, who dedicated his life to fighting imperialism through armed struggle, making imperialists fear him even after it gruesomely killed him. Che Guevara showed the world the importance of fighting imperialism through guerilla warfare rather than mere protests. He spread important ideas through statements and actions that, to this day, inspire many people, most of whom are to the left of the political spectrum.

A very famous video for Che Guevara shows him giving a speech at the United Nations. He ends his speech by saying, “Homeland or death.” This has been embodied by Palestinians from the moment they are born to the moment they leave the world, often with their blood on the hands of Israeli occupation forces.

“Homeland or death,” if taken in the context of Palestine, strictly means that one should do everything they can to fight for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. It means that leftists around the world should not promote or even accept a “two-state solution,” nor should they accept the demonization of Resistance groups by the Israeli occupation and its allies or even hesitate to support the Resistance.

Che Guevara is still alive

Following the Israeli attack that deliberately targeted and killed Al Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar, videographer Rabih Me’mari, and Hussein Akil on November 20, Che Guevara’s daughter, Aleida, visited Lebanon to attend the memorial service of the martyrs.

Aleida Guevara also took a detour to Saida, a city in South Lebanon, and met with the Popular Democratic Party, a leftist group. As I was present in the meeting and had the honor to meet Che’s own flesh and blood, and heard her share many stories about her father and experiences from her own struggle against imperialism, I was curious to know what she believes Che would think amid the increasing leftist diversion from armed resistance.

So I asked, “We notice today that many people within the left, who raise pictures of Che and idolize him, have a negative stance toward several Resistance groups standing against Western imperialism, from Hamas to Hezbollah and the Yemeni Armed Forces. If Che was here today, what would his opinion be, and what can we do to unite fronts?”

She started her reply by saying that it was indeed a difficult mission to unite these fronts, but “I always say, based on my father’s thinking, we should always look for the common ground. We should begin by specifying our goals and then look for what unites us or what common goals we have.”

A group of Baltimore activists organized by the Peoples Power Assembly gathered along Broening Highway on April 7 to protest the arrival of President “Genocide Joe” Biden. The President visited the city to tour the recently collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge. 

The demonstration sent one unassailable message to Joe Biden: Genocidal maniacs and imperialist dilettantes are not welcome in Baltimore City. As Biden pretends to care about the six immigrant workers who lost their lives due to corporate greed and regulatory incompetence, thousands continue to die in the U.S.-backed Zionist genocide in Gaza. 

The protesters braved wind, cold, and rain to make their message heard loud and clear. As the war criminal flew overhead in his helicopter, the group chanted, “Biden Biden, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” and “Free Free Palestine!” 

After hours of demonstration, protesters marched through the southeast Baltimore neighborhood to a local park, where they held a brief community meeting that focused on future actions in the Baltimore area. 

Our city will not stand by while the zionist genocide and the repression at home only escalate. As long as the imperialist slaughter in Gaza continues, the Zionists, corporate oligarchs, and mainstream politicians will have no peace. 

The never-ending U.S. sponsorship of the Zionist entity makes it easy for many to believe that “Israel” is the superior in the relationship. Biden’s behavior during the horrible genocide in Gaza is designed to feed into that false narrative. 

The U.S., of course, subsidizes Israel and provides the arms and ammunition for the Zionist regime’s deadly mission to police the region to protect the oil and gas resources for giant U.S. energy companies and banks. 

Any rift between the Zionist right wing and the White House is over the management of the genocide. Israel’s job is to use whatever brutality is needed, doing the dirty work for U.S. monopoly capitalist interests.

The bloodthirsty assault on Gaza and forced starvation may incite a wider war involving Iran, Syria, and the fighting forces of Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

Already, the U.S. and Britain are engaged in a parallel war with the forces of Yemen to try to regain control of the Red Sea. As of April 6, they have bombed Yemen 148 times since January in response to Yemen’s campaign to block ships linked with Israel. Israeli warplanes bombed Iran’s embassy in Syria on April 1, escalating the war.

The absolute determination of the Palestinian people cannot be extinguished. The horrors inflicted on Gaza are outrageous. And the role of the U.S. empire has ignited an anti-imperialist movement as powerful as any this century. 

The opposition is widening and getting deeper. Mass protests are weekly in cities across the country and around the world. “Genocide Joe” Biden can’t go anywhere without being confronted by protesters. State Department officials are resigning. Two members of the U.S. armed forces have committed suicide by self-immolation. A third soldier is on a hunger strike at the White House.

The sharper understanding of the U.S. role and the mass protests have spread like wildfire and are now being expressed in the realm of international diplomacy and legality.

South Africa sued the U.S. and Israel at the International Court of Justice for violating the 1948 Genocide Convention. While the court didn’t rule that actual genocide was happening in Gaza, it did rule that South Africa’s brilliant arguments were “plausible.”

The Court ordered Israel to cease actions that, in fact, amount to genocide. The Zionist regime was ordered to report on its progress in a list of demands designed to end the genocide. 

The South African government also announced it would arrest any of its citizens who were mercenaries for the Zionists if they returned home.

A long list of countries and blocs, including the 57-member Organization of Islamic Countries, the 22-member Arab League, the Maldives, Namibia, Pakistan, Turkey, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and others, supported the suit. 

During the hearings, the Chinese ambassador to the U.N., Zhang Jun, backed the Palestinians’ right to free themselves from occupation using armed force, calling it an “inalienable right well founded in international law.”

A few weeks after the ICJ ruling, the U.S. vetoed a ceasefire resolution at the U.N. for a third time since Oct. 7. That resolution had the support of 13 Security Council members; Britain abstained, and the U.S. vetoed it. 

The U.S.-armed Israeli Occupation Force has already killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children.

The White House claimed it vetoed ceasefire resolutions to protect its negotiations for what it called a “humanitarian” ceasefire. In Qatar, representatives from Egypt, Israel, and the U.S. were meeting with Hamas, demanding the release of hostages. In the meeting with Hamas, representing the Zionists was Mossad chief David Barnea, and the U.S. was CIA Director William Burns. 

Together, the CIA and Mossad are the two deadliest terrorist organizations on the planet, sharing a long, collaborative relationship in carrying out plots of sabotage and assassination throughout West Asia and elsewhere.

Palestinian leaders participating in the talks have stood firm in their position that the release of hostages can only happen in exchange for a permanent ceasefire, unhindered delivery of food and supplies, and the release of thousands of Palestinians being held in Zionist prisons. They are trying to find a way to protect the Palestinian people. 

CNN reported that on March 5, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ordered Qatar to threaten Hamas representatives with expulsion from Doha, where the talks are being held, unless they surrender the hostages and accept the U.S. position of only a temporary ceasefire.

After the most recent veto at the U.N., Malaysia called for abolishing the use of a veto by a single Permanent Security Council member. According to an analysis by Blue Marble, the U.S. has vetoed resolutions critical of Israel more than any other council member – 45 times out of 89 times it has used its veto power since 1945. 

Malaysia’s former Prime Minister addressed the President of the U.N., saying, “Exercise of the veto by permanent members of the Security Council should be regulated so that it cannot be used in situations such as mass atrocity crimes, crimes against humanity or war crimes.” If the Malaysia proposal were adopted, a veto could only happen if it is supported by two Permanent Security Council members, three non-permanent members, and a simple majority of the General Assembly, effectively ending the dominance of the US empire at the U.N.

It should be no surprise that Russia is also an important part of the growing outrage over the U.S./Zionist genocide. In mid-October, when Brazil submitted language for a resolution calling for a humanitarian pause to deliver aid to Gazans, Russia had submitted draft language that was ultimately stripped from the final resolution calling for an immediate, durable, and full ceasefire and to stop attacks against civilians. 

After the U.S. veto, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told Council Ambassadors, “Anyone who did not support Russia’s draft resolution on this issue bears responsibility for what happens.” The current draft “has no clear call for a ceasefire” and “will not help to stop the bloodshed.”

Soon after the ICJ announced the results of the lawsuit in February, Nicaragua went to the ICJ against Germany for funding Israel’s genocide and cutting aid to UNRWA, the relief agency that distributes food and safe drinking water to Gazans. More than 10 U.S. allies have suspended aid to UNRWA, the main distributor of desperately needed food and water to Gazans.

Since the Al-Aqsa Flood uprising against Zionist occupation on Oct. 7, the Palestinian people in Gaza are bravely continuing the fight to win a permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation. Despite billions of dollars in weapons provided by the U.S., the Zionist military has faced strong resistance in the north of Gaza that is largely downplayed in the U.S. media. As in the Vietnam War, the movement of millions in the streets and the efforts by so many former colonialized countries to use every avenue at their disposal to come to the aid of Palestine will bring this horror to an end. Palestine will never die.

April 7 — With the greatest sadness, grief, and revolutionary anger, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) mourns, in the name of its Secretary-General and his deputy, the Political Bureau, the Central Committee, its fellow prisoners, and all the comrades in the homeland and the diaspora, its companion, the great national and Front leader, the prisoner, the intellectual, the revolutionary thinker, and the writer Walid Nimr As’ad Daqqah “Abu Milad,” 62 years old, one of the most prominent leaders, theorists, and thinkers of the prisoners’ movement, who was martyred this evening as a result of a policy of medical negligence after suffering from a long illness.

The Popular Front extends to the comrade leader, Secretary-General Ahmed Saadat, the comrades in the prison branch and the prisoner movement, his struggling wife, Sanaa, his daughter Milad, his entire family, and all his comrades, its deepest condolences on the martyrdom of this comrade, leader and inspiration, one of the generals of steadfastness, and the distinguished national and Front leaders and writers who engraved their name in letters of gold for what he presented in rich and inspiring struggle experience for many generations of prisoners in the occupation prisons. 

He also had a rich and distinguished intellectual and literary experience that was unparalleled in its influence on the lives of the prisoners, its meanings, its revolution, and its exploits. He was one of the most prominent symbols of prison literature. Rather, it is its dean and first writer, as he contributed important intellectual and literary studies to the Palestinian, Arab, and international libraries. In parallel, the martyr was one of the most prominent national leaders and prisoners of the occupied interior who advanced the ranks in confronting the practices and violations of the occupation and participated in all the struggle battles of the prisoner movement.

Biography of Comrade Commander Walid Daqqah (“Abu Milad”)

– Born on July 18, 1961.

– He is from the town of Baqa al-Gharbiya, Haifa district.

– Commander Walid grew up in a Palestinian family consisting of 6 brothers and 3 sisters.

– The martyr received his basic education in Baqa al-Gharbiya schools, and obtained his high school diploma in 1979 from Yimma Agricultural Secondary School. He joined the university and continued his scientific and academic studies.

– During his studies, his views and awareness of the issues of his people and his deep affiliation to his Palestinian national identity blossomed.

– In 2010, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in the interdisciplinary study of democracy, and in 2016 he obtained a master’s degree in regional studies, “Israeli Studies track” from Al-Quds University, but he was unable to complete his preparation for the degree of PhD.

– He joined the ranks of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1983, and joined a military cell affiliated with the Front.

– In 1984, he received military training at the Front’s military bases in Syria, and then he contributed to the formation of a secret military apparatus for the Front inside the occupied interior, whose mission was to collect information about zionist leaders and officials who participated in committing massacres in the invasion of Lebanon.

– The martyr Walid and his comrades within the military cell carried out a series of operations, including the kidnapping and killing of the zionist soldier “Moshe Tammam,” as a result of which he and a group of comrades were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.

– He completed his sentence in March 2023, but an additional two years were added to his sentence because he was accused of smuggling mobile phones into prisons.

– He was among 23 prisoners whom the occupation refused to release in all exchange deals. The occupation also withdrew from placing him on the list of released long-term prisoners in 2013-2014.

– He is considered one of the most prominent prisoner theorists and thinkers inside the occupation prisons. He has intellectual and literary productions that have reached the international level, the most famous of which are the books “The Melting of Consciousness” and “Parallel Time,” and the novel “The Story of the Secret of Oil,” which won international fame and many awards, continued with the novel “The Story of the Secret Sword,” a second part, and it was expected that the third part, “The Tale of the Secret of the Spectrum,” would be published.

– His book, “Fusion of Consciousness or ‘Redefining Torture,’” is considered one of the most prominent productions of the prisoner movement and is considered an important reference. Through this study, he laid out the ABCs of steadfastness, discipline, rooting organizational work, and the strength of the will inside prisons. He is also credited with crystallizing concepts that describe the reality inside prisons, such as the concept of “Parallel Time” (i.e., the time of prisoners versus the time of those outside the prisons), and he wrote a large number of political, intellectual, and literary articles and studies, and is considered a first-class political thinker. He produced inside the occupation prisons a huge intellectual project during which he answered all issues, inquiries, and existential questions, as well as issues of liberation, strengthening the state of criticism within it, on his way to reaching the truth and the crisis of the national project. He was a painter who provided the prison with many important national paintings, speaking the Hebrew language fluently.

– He was subjected to torture, solitary confinement, and being prevented from visiting during his long detention, and his writings and publications were pursued by the Prison Service.

– He smuggled sperm out of prison and became a father at the age of 57 to a daughter he called “Milad.”

– On December 18, 2022, it was announced that he was suffering from a rare bone marrow cancer, as a result of which his health condition deteriorated, and he was transferred to the hospital. In June 2023, his request for release was rejected, and the Central Court also rejected the appeal he submitted against the committee’s decision.

– He died this evening as a result of a policy of medical negligence after a serious deterioration in his health.

As the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine bids farewell to its comrade, the leader, thinker, writer, inspiration, and great theoretician, it pledges to him to be loyal to his national, intellectual, and Front legacy, through which he made Palestine and the cause of its liberation his compass. Until his departure, he remained inhabited by Palestine, all of Palestine from its river to its sea.

Glory to the great martyr of Palestine and humanity.

We will certainly be victorious.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Information Department

April 7, 2024

Source: Resistance News Network

Thousands of people came to New York City’s Times Square on April 5 to commemorate Al-Quds Day. They were among the millions who marched around the world yesterday, the last Friday in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

The march in New York City was called by the Muslim World Congress and the Al-Quds Committee of New York. It was endorsed and supported by dozens of organizations, including Shut It Down 4 Palestine, a coalition that has become the center for Palestine solidarity organizing in New York City. 

Also known as Jerusalem, Al-Quds is the eternal capital of Palestine.

A call to mark Al-Quds Day in solidarity with Palestinians was made in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution. Since then, rallies and demonstrations have been held worldwide on that day.

This year, the annual commemoration has taken special significance because of the genocide in Gaza. Over 14,000 Palestinian children have been killed there by Zionist war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu with the weapons supplied by Genocide Joe Biden.

Among the speakers at Times Square was Roger Wareham, a human rights lawyer and a member of the International Secretariat of the December 12th Movement. Wareham denounced the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland, which he compared to driving Black people out of their communities. 

Wareham noted that the first major shutdown of New York City organized by the December 12 Movement, the Day of Outrage in December 1987, coincided with the eruption of the First Intifada in Palestine. He led the crowd in a chant of “We ain’t going nowhere!”

The actor Susan Sarandon eloquently described those killed in Gaza. She gave numbers of mothers, children, health workers, journalists and others who have been killed.

Other speakers included representatives from such community organizations as PAL Al-Awda: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, the Palestinian Youth Movement and The People’s Forum.

People marched from Times Square over to the Zionist state’s mission to the UN on Second Avenue and then down to 34th Street. The march, which spanned blocks, then went west to Herald Square, where a short rally was held.

On International Quds Day, when protests are held around the world to show solidarity with Palestinians, Yemenis are once again at the forefront of worldwide solidarity with Gaza. Yemenis of all stripes took to the streets in unprecedented numbers on Friday to demonstrate their support for Palestine as well as Ansar Allah’s (Houthis) Red Sea operation against Israeli, American and British ships until the war in Gaza is stopped and the blockade is lifted. This year’s protests came as the Biden Administration embarked upon new moves aimed at Yemen’s Central Bank in a bid to pressure Ansar Allah to stop targeting Israeli ships.

The annual event, which falls annually on the last Friday of every Ramadan and sees rallies held across the globe in support of the Palestinian cause, is especially meaningful this year as Israel’s war against Gaza rages on. With the largest rallies taking place in Yemen’s capital city of Sana’a, over 130 cities and squares throughout Yemen filled hundreds of thousands on Friday carrying Palestinians, Yemen and Lebanese Hezbollah flags and carrying banners blaming the United States for the ongoing war in Gaza.

The collective voice of the demonstrations was unified to renew their commitment to Palestinians, to stress that the Palestine issue is the most important to Yemen, that Yemen must take the initiative to liberate it whatever the cost and to call on Muslims around the world to boycott Israeli products.

On March 26, the head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council reaffirmed in a ceremony in Sana’a on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of the Saudi-led war on Yemen that the country’s maritime operations in the Red Sea against Israeli-linked ships will only cease when Tel Aviv’s crimes in Gaza stop, “The only way to stop Yemen’s operations is to stop genocide and violence against the oppressed people of Gaza,” he said.

This year, a new significance

Friday’s protests were unique as they not only attracted crowds from across Yemen’s diverse political and social spectrums: Shafi’i, Zaydi, Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood, but also thousands of former allies of the Saudi-led coalition, who put down arms and joined Ansar Allah following the party’s reaction to the Israeli aggression on Gaza and U.S. support for Tel Aviv.

“By God Almighty, it is an honor to be in AlSabeen Square for supporting Gaza. I deeply regret the past days in which I was on the side of the U.S. allies,” protester Ahmed Mohamed Binh told MintPress. Binh was one of the leaders of the Saudi-led coalition in Marib and a staunch opponent of Ansar Allah. Yet, he returned to Sana’a after announcing that he had joined Ansar Allah because of their support for Gaza. Today, he is one of the most vocal advocates for commemorating Al-Quds Day in Sana’a.

Ironically, the aggression against Gaza and the American participation in the ongoing massacres have made Yemenis more united than ever while increasing the popularity of Ansar Allah not only in Yemen but across the world. Activists, jurists, and politicians have applauded and described them as heroes trying to stop genocide in Gaza. This is despite nine years and billions of dollars spent by Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and the U.S. to contain Ansar Allah.

This year’s Quds Day rallies fall three days after a pro-Palestine conference titled “Palestine the Central Cause of the Nation” was held in Sana’a. The four-day conference discussed the Quranic vision of the Palestinian cause, the struggle of Yemenis in Palestine throughout history, the importance of economic boycotts, and Yemen’s political, military, and popular role in supporting Gaza.

Participants from around the world who stand in solidarity with Palestine joined the conference remotely. On the first day, televised speeches were delivered by British politician and parliamentarian George Galloway, Russian philosopher and advisor to President Vladimir Putin Aleksandr Dugin, South African parliamentarian Zulivlele Mandela – grandson of late South African leader Nelson Mandela and Indian writer and political activist Tushar Gandhi, grandson of the spiritual leader of India Mahatma Gandhi. Representing Cuba was Elida Guevara, daughter of Che Guevara.

The conference comes as Ansar Allah is making preparations to host leaders of Palestinian resistance movements, particularly leaders from Hamas, in the event that they are expelled from Qatar due to American pressure.

Taking the war to the bank

The demonstrations were not just aimed at the Palestine issue. They challenged the U.S. role in Yemen, most recently attempts by the Biden Administration to force Yemeni banks to relocate their headquarters from the capital, Sana’a (where Ansar Allah is based), to Aden, home to a number of groups allied with the U.S. On Tuesday, the Central Bank of Aden, run by Washington’s allies, issued a decision requiring banks to transfer their headquarters to Aden, threatening to implement the Anti-Terrorist Financing Law against any bank that violates the decision.

The decision used the U.S. classification of Ansar Allah as a terrorist organization to justify the move, which allegedly came in response to a new 100 riyal coin issued by the Sana’a Central Bank to replace damaged 100 riyal bills. However, the justification is inconsistent with the decision of the Central Bank in Aden. The new currency issued by the Central Bank in Sana’a did not affect exchange rates. Economists have confirmed that it is not new money being created but rather a substitute for damaged banknotes, and therefore, the banking system was not affected.

Abdul-Malik al-Ajr, a negotiator for the Yemeni delegation, said of the move, “What occurred was the normal process of replacing damaged currency, not printing a new one. This is a normal procedure that all governments carry out periodically, but because of the war and the siege, Yemen was unable to replace this damaged currency, and it became a problem for many residents, especially in grocery stores, taxis, public transportation, bakeries and water stations.”

Following the announcement of the new coin, citizens flocked to exchange points set up by the Central Bank in Sana’a. The currency was minted according to international standards, and the process of issuing it will not affect the exchange rates because its distribution will depend on replacing the damaged one by replacing each damaged 100 note with a 100 coin,” the Central Bank in Sana’a said in a statement.

Ansar Alla’s spokesperson, Muhammed Abdul Salam, said of the move, “Printing a one hundred riyal coin is not in vain, but rather a necessary step taken as a substitute for a damaged paper currency. We wonder why America and European countries are upset as a result of what the Central Bank of Yemen has done in partially addressing the situation of the national currency, which has been subjected and is [stll] being subjected to a brutal war by the coalition and by America itself.”

Yemeni financial experts told MintPress that the United States Agency for International Development recently supervised the development of new systems for the Central Bank in Aden, including the “Unified National Network,” a financial transfer system. The Central Bank in Aden has asked banks, exchange companies, and transfer companies to join that system exclusively. For the U.S., this means that it will be able to access financial and banking data and financial transfers.

Al-Tadamum Bank, the Bank of Yemen and Kuwait, the Al-Amal Microfinance Bank, the Shamil Bank of Yemen and Bahrain, and the Al-Kuraimi Islamic Microfinance Bank, which together comprise over 80% of Yemen’s bank accounts, have already joined the Unified National Network.

The decision by the Biden administration to designate Ansar Allah as a “Global Terrorist group” has already harmed thousands of Yemeni families, as many international banks, exchange shops, and firms have already ceased participating in commercial or financial transactions with Yemenis due to the fear of triggering U.S. sanctions. Nearly 80% of Yemenis live in areas under AnsarAllah’s control, including the country’s capital, Sana’a’a, and the major port of al-Hodeida. Consequently, the U.S. economic pressure will inevitably push more Yemeni civilians closer to famine.

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist based in Sana’a. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

Source: MintPress News

One hundred and fifty people gathered in northern Baltimore April 1 to protest an event sponsored by Zionist real estate magnate CapitIL. Local activists believe it to have been either an illegal auction of Palestinian land to settlers or an informational meeting on the potential purchase of Palestinian land. 

These auctions have become disturbingly common since the start of the U.S.-backed Zionist military operation in Gaza after Oct. 7. Zionists are anticipating a swath of new stolen land to purchase and settle. 

To show that Baltimore will not stand for genocide and land theft, a coalition of organizations – including Peoples Power Assembly, Jewish Voice for Peace, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Al Awda – formed a strong, noisy picket line directly across the street from the event. 

The pro-Palestine demonstration was met with racist, sexist, and homophobic vitriol from a similarly sized fascist demonstration in support of the land auctions. The fascists donned a variety of “Israeli” and U.S. flags. They had the local police department’s complete support. 

The Zionist crowd was almost completely white, while the counter-demonstration was multinational and multi-gendered. The pro-Palestine demonstration included a number of anti-Zionist Jews as well. 

Have no doubt, these Zionists do not care about Judaism or the Jewish people, even if many are themselves Jewish. They are in thrall to the agenda of the U.S. military industry, Big Oil and the Washington political establishment. 

Wherever they gather, those who stand for complete and absolute Palestinian liberation will continue to deny them peace. 

The Israeli airforce struck a convoy of aid workers overnight on Tuesday in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, killing seven members of the U.S.-based World Central Kitchen charity.

The “team was traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle,” WCK said.

Local media circulated footage depicting the aftermath of the strike on the vehicle. The footage reveals a hole from the missile impact piercing through a large banner affixed to the roof, prominently displaying the organization’s name and logo for identification.

The aid workers killed in the attack were from Australia, Poland, Britain, and Palestine, and one was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada.

Graphic images depicting the corpses of aid workers, clad in bulletproof vests bearing the logo of World Central Kitchen, circulated on social media.

“Some of them were [just] body parts, another had their face amputated, some lost upper or lower body parts – deformations that show they were targeted by a rocket that hit their cars,” Marwan al-Hams, director of al-Najjar Hospital, said.

“They are currently being kept at Najjar Hospital until their embassies or consular representatives are present,” al-Hams added.

WCK announced the immediate suspension of all its operations in the region. Ships that had already set sail from Cyprus as part of WCK’s operations were reportedly turning back.

Anera, a U.S. charity providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians, also announced a pause in its operations in Gaza. It was the second-largest humanitarian aid group in the Gaza Strip after the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

“The unprecedented scale of the current conflict and the disregard for international law necessitate this historic pause in our operations,” the group said.

The Gaza logistics and support coordinator for the group, Mousa Shawwa, was also killed in an Israeli strike on Deir al-Balah last month.

“Everyone does as he pleases”

“This happens in wartime,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of the killings.

“We are thoroughly looking into it, are in contact with the governments [of the foreigners among the dead], and will do everything to ensure it does not happen again,” he added, according to The Jerusalem Post.

He said that the killings were “unintended.”

Israel’s military chief of staff, Herzl Halevi, said that “the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers.”

He added: “It was a mistake that followed a misidentification – at night during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Unnamed Israeli army sources told Haaretz that the killing “stemmed from poor discipline among field commanders, not a lack of coordination between the army and aid organizations.”

An Israeli intelligence source told the newspaper that the army’s southern command “know exactly what the cause of the attack was – in Gaza, everyone does as he pleases.”

John Kirby, U.S. State Department spokesperson, said “there’s no evidence” that the Israeli army killing of the WCK staff was deliberate.

Kirby asserted that the U.S. State Department has “not found any incidents where the Israelis have violated international humanitarian law.”

“Targeted” attack?

But the CEO of World Central Kitchen described it as a “targeted attack” by the Israeli army.

The charity works and coordinates very closely with the Israeli army, as the latter itself has confirmed.

“WCK are thought to have the closest cooperation with the Israeli army and seemed to enjoy preferential treatment for being from its perspective ‘neutral’ (ie no advocacy work),” Tania Hary, the executive director of Israeli rights group Gisha, said.

The nature of the attack raises suspicions that it may have been deliberate.

“An Israeli drone fired three missiles one after the other,” unnamed “defense sources” privy to the details of the attack told the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz.

The source stated that the Israeli army conducted the attack based on “suspicion that a terrorist was traveling with the convoy,” the newspaper reported.

The Israeli army’s operation room, tasked with coordinating and securing the aid convoy’s route, supposedly “identified an armed man on the truck and suspected that he was a terrorist,” Haaretz reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the details of the attack.

“Until the actions that preceded the strike, carried out by [an Elbit] Hermes 450 drone, were completed, the truck reached the warehouse with the World Central Kitchen’s three cars,” including the seven aid workers, Haaretz reported.

Minutes later, three trucks belonging to the air group left the warehouse “without the truck, on which the ostensibly armed man was located,” Haaretz reported.

The newspaper added that the “armed man did not leave the warehouse,” citing unnamed “defense sources.”

Despite neither the man nor the truck he was in having left the warehouse or accompanied the convoy after its departure – which, either way, does not justify the killing of humanitarian aid workers – it remains unclear why the Israeli air force proceeded with the attack and in the manner it did.

The aid vehicles carrying the seven workers continued to move along the route approved by the Israeli army, as reported by Haaretz and continued to coordinate with it.

“When the convoy was driving along the approved route, the war room of the unit responsible for security of the route ordered the drone operators to attack one of the cars with a missile,” Haaretz reported.

Some of the aid workers managed to get out of the vehicle after the missile hit it and moved to one of the other two cars.

“They continued to drive and even notified the people responsible that they were attacked, but, seconds later, another missile hit their car,” Haaretz reported.

“The third car in the convoy approached, and the passengers began to transfer to it the wounded who had survived the second strike – in order to get them out of danger. But then a third missile struck them.”

Researchers identified the locations from where the three missiles were fired:

An unnamed Israeli army source cited by Haaretz attempts to distance top decision-makers from the attack, implying that the decision to launch it was made in the field.

“It’s frustrating,” the source told Haaretz.

“We’re trying our hardest to accurately hit terrorists, and utilizing every thread of intelligence, and in the end the units in the field decide to launch attacks without any preparation, in cases that have nothing to do with protecting our forces.”

If anything, this only underscores the brazenness of Israel’s trigger-happy soldiers and air force, assured of a lack of consequences awaiting them over their actions.

This was reportedly not the first time that staff from the World Central Kitchen had been on the receiving end of Israeli fire.

Just days ago, an Israeli sniper fired at a vehicle en route to a food warehouse owned by the organization in the southern area of Khan Younis.

The gunfire struck the vehicle’s windshield, but the aid volunteer was not injured.

The World Central Kitchen immediately filed a complaint with the Israeli army, Haaretz reported, urging them to cease firing at its operatives during food delivery missions.

Hypocrisy

“I am heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole WCK family,” said José Andrés, the celebrity chef who heads the organization.

“The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon.”

Andrés’s statements were markedly different from his previous open support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza, which came several days after Israel had launched its assault on the Strip and openly committed to using food as a weapon to punish the entire population of Gaza.

“You as a minister have to first recognize that the Hamas attack against civilians is a terrorist act,” Andrés wrote on 16 October in response to Spanish minister Ione Belarra.

Belarra was denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and slamming Israel for “carrying out war crimes in the Gaza Strip, massive bombings, water and electricity cuts,” as well as not “letting in humanitarian aid.”

That did not phase Andrés then, who demanded that Belarra recognize that Israel is “defending its citizens, then you can ask for restraint and respect for the lives of civilians in Gaza.”

The celebrity chef continued his attack on Belarra.

“Are you pro-Russia and pro-Hamas? You do not represent me or Spain. She does not deserve to be a minister.”

Built from the rubble

Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip over the last six months has been marred by attempts to whitewash the manmade catastrophe with humanitarian gestures.

The latest face of this effort has been the World Central Kitchen, which describes itself as “first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate and community crises.”

The organization sent its first aid shipment to Gaza in mid-March.

A video with a hopeful soundtrack, posted by the group, shows smiling workers constructing a temporary pier on the shores of Gaza against the backdrop of a coastal enclave that the Israeli army has turned into vast killing fields and heaps of rubble.

The footage shows workers hastily building a temporary pier to facilitate the arrival of the aid ship carrying 200 tons of food, medicine, supplies, and other essentials.

“This was the first boat to reach Gaza in almost two decades,” WCK said.

This is untrue.

Shortly after Israel imposed its siege on Gaza by land, air, and sea in 2007, international activists managed to break the maritime blockade by delivering aid via boat, defying the Israeli occupation.

Despite a few successful attempts, the Israeli navy repeatedly attacked the boats; and in the case of the Mavi Marmara in 2010, killed and kidnapped activists on it.

The only reason the World Central Kitchen has been able to deliver aid into Gaza by boat is because the genocidaires of Gaza have given them the green light and safe passage to do so.

“Every step was carried out with permission from the Israeli military,” The New York Times reported, speaking to the charity’s director of emergency response.

Israel has blocked the import and export of supplies, goods and persons in and out of the Gaza Strip for 17 years – an act of collective punishment for the 2.3 million Palestinians in the tiny territory.

Eliminating and replacing UNRWA

Israel’s aim has been to eliminate and replace UNRWA in its role as the established provider and coordinator of aid distribution within the Gaza Strip.

In January, Israel baselessly accused a handful of UNRWA employees of participating in the 7 October military operation. These allegations were based on confessions that were likely obtained under torture of Palestinian detainees.

This prompted donor countries, including the U.S., the agency’s largest funder, to suspend $440 million in aid.

In recent weeks, several countries – including Australia, Sweden and Canada – announced that they have resumed financial contributions to UNRWA.

No self-determination

World Central Kitchen was part of the plan for a “maritime corridor” to the coastal enclave announced by U.S. President Joe Biden last month.

Countries that have consistently supported Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza or have refused to call for a ceasefire have been on board for this “maritime corridor” plan.

Israel, the engineer of the Gaza famine, was the first to endorse the idea of establishing a maritime corridor to address a crisis it initiated and is now worsening.

On Tuesday, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari even called the work of World Central Kitchen “critical.”

But there remains no technical reason why aid trucks should not be able to enter Gaza by land. It is the most efficient, cost-effective and safe method of delivering aid to Gaza, and aid trucks remain stuck at the Rafah crossing with Egypt, unable to enter Gaza because Israel won’t allow them in.

Washington refuses to use any of its enormous leverage to compel Tel Aviv to do so, or to end the siege on Gaza altogether.

The construction of a temporary pier and the dropping of aid packages from the sky are political gestures aimed at maneuvering and establishing political realities on the ground.

To this end, humanitarian aid airdrops, facilitated by the Jordanian air force, have evolved into publicity stunts for governments that have aided, abetted and defended Israel’s slaughter and campaign of destruction in Gaza.

These governments seek to whitewash their active roles in the genocide, maintaining support – and impeding efforts to stop – Israel’s killing machine.

The goal is to reshape the narrative of what is undeniably a war against civilians by shifting the focus from its political roots to “solving” a vague humanitarian crisis that Israel started and is worsening through its war on UNRWA.

This depoliticization serves to obscure the true nature of the genocide and the impending famine, reducing it to a series of tragic and unexplained instances of starvation and death within a “war-torn” landscape.

All the while, Western countries are helping Israel systematically destroy UNRWA, which is the entity most capable of effectively organizing humanitarian aid on a mass scale in Gaza.

Not only does this absolve Israel of its obligation to halt the slaughter and deliberate starvation of Palestinians, but it also renders Palestinians dependent on international aid and emergency relief – which is obstructed by the same army that supposedly coordinates with, and now kills, those responsible for its delivery.

Creating an environment in which Palestinians depend on aid prevents them from exercising the self-determination necessary to govern themselves.

Stripping away that self-determination has been a central, discernible tenet of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Source: Electronic Intifada