SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
john kirby
Fears of 'Imminent Catastrophe' Mount as Hezbollah Hits Back Amid Israeli Airstrikes
"It cannot be overstated enough: There is NO military solution that will make either side safer," said one U.N. official.
Sep 22, 2024
Fears of an all-out Middle East war mounted Sunday as Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into Israel, whose military continued bombing targets in southern Lebanon while moving troops, tanks, and other equipment toward the northern border.
During a Sunday funeral speech for three members killed in Israeli airstrikes, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem declared an "open-ended battle" with Israel was underway. Hezbollah is reeling from last week's unprecedented surprise attack on communication devices that killed dozens of people and wounded thousands more, as well as Israeli airstrikes on Beirut suburbs that have slain dozens of Lebanese including women and children and injured scores more.
The dead include senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil.
"We admit that we are pained. We are humans. But as we are pained, you will also be pained," Qassem told mourners at Aqil's funeral, directing his remarks to Israel.
In Israel, air raid warning sirens blared warnings of incoming Hezbollah rocket fire that penetrated further south in Israel than at any time in nearly two decades, sending residents scrambling for shelters. Israeli media reported 13 people injured—one of them seriously—and heavy damage to homes and cars.
As officials closed schools, limited gatherings, and ordered hospitals to move patients in the north, the Israel Defense Forces moved troops, tanks, and other equipment toward the border with Lebanon. Numerous social media posts said Israeli reservists had received emergency call-up orders, known as Tzav 8s.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his far-right government would "take whatever action is necessary to restore security" in the northern part of Israel.
"No country can accept the wanton rocketing of its cities," he said. "We can't accept it either."
Hezbollah said it would not stop fighting until Israel stops its assault on Gaza, for which it is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the United Nations envoy for Lebanon, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that "with the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: There is NO military solution that will make either side safer."
European Union foreign policy chief and European Commission Vice President Josep Borrell
said on social media Sunday that "the E.U. is extremely concerned by the escalation in Lebanon, following Friday's attacks in Beirut and the increasing cross-border violence between Israel and Hezbollah."
"Civilians on both sides are paying an enormous price," Borrell added. "An immediate ceasefire is needed."
In the United States, White House national security spokesman John Kirby
told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that the Biden administration—which supplies Israel with billions of dollars in arms and diplomatic cover—is "involved in extensive and quite assertive diplomacy."
"We want to make sure that we can continue to do everything we can to try to prevent this from becoming an all-out war there with Hezbollah across that Lebanese border," he added. "We still believe that there can be time and space for a diplomatic solution here."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Did the Same Thing,' US Official Says After Israel's Rafah Massacre
One Afghanistan-born journalist said John Kirby's admission "does not excuse what Joe Biden's allies in Israel did in Rafah."
May 29, 2024
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Tuesday defended Israel after its military killed and wounded hundreds of Palestinians in attacks on refugee encampments in and near the southern Gaza city of Rafah inside an Israeli-designated "safe zone."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the first of the two attacks—which ignited a fire that burned people, including many women and children, alive inside their tents—a "tragic mistake."
Asked by a reporter what the consequences would be "if there were an American strike on a legitimate terrorist target that ended resulting with 45 civilian deaths and some 200 others injured," Kirby replied, "I can't answer a hypothetical like that."
"But we have conducted airstrikes in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where tragically we caused civilian casualties," he continued. "We did the same thing. We owned up to it. We investigated it. And we tried to make changes... Wae tried to learn from it to make changes so that those set of mistakes wouldn't happen again."
Kirby referred to an August 2021 drone strike in Kabul that occurred during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that killed an aid worker and nine members of his family including seven children outside their home. A New York Times investigation subsequently revealed that the U.S. military knew that the strike likely killed civilians but initially lied about it, claiming there was "no indication" that noncombatants were harmed in the attack.
"We atoned for it, we learned from it, and we put in place procedures to try and prevent that from happening again," Kirby said of the strike, "and that's what our expectations would be in this case."
According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, more than 432,000 civilians in over half a dozen countries have been killed by all sides during the course of the continuing open-ended U.S.-led War on Terror.
Since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks that left more than 1,100 Israelis and foreign nationals dead and over 240 others taken hostage, Israeli forces have killed at least 36,171 Palestinians—mostly women and children—according to Gazan and international officials. Israel's Gaza onslaught has also wounded at least 81,420 Palestinians; another 11,000 are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
During Tuesday's press conference, CBS News reporter Ed O'Keefe asked Kirby how Israel's tent massacre doesn't violate U.S. President Joe Biden's shifting "red line" warning against invading Rafah.
"We don't want to see a major ground operation," Kirby replied. "We haven't seen that at this point."
Reporter: How does this not violate the red line the president laid out
Kirby: We don’t want to see a major operation we haven’t seen one
Reporter: How many more charred corpses does he have to see before he considers a change in policy
Kirby: I take offense at the question pic.twitter.com/9LMKl1BuAr
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) May 28, 2024
O'Keefe followed up by asking, "How many more charred corpses does he have to see before the president considers a change in policy?"
"We don't want to see a single more innocent life taken, and I kind of take a little offense at the question," Kirby retorted. "No civilian casualties is the right number of civilian casualties, and this is not something that we've turned a blind eye to, nor has it been something we've ignored or neglected to raise with our Israeli counterparts."
Kirby's remarks came on the same day that Israeli tank fire on a makeshift refugee encampment in southern Gaza killed at least 21 people, at least a dozen of whom were women and children.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Putin Warns of 'Serious Consequences' If Ukraine Uses Western Arms in Russia
The Russian president condemned the West's "constant escalation" as NATO members including France, Germany, and Canada back Kyiv's use of long-range missiles to attack targets inside his country.
May 29, 2024
As the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and leaders of NATO member nations joined the United States in advocating Ukrainian use of Western-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Tuesday that any such attacks could have grave repercussions.
"This constant escalation can lead to serious consequences," Putin told reporters during a visit to Uzbekistan. "If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons? It's hard to say—do they want a global conflict?"
Putin's remarks came after French President Emmanuel Macronsaid Ukraine should be allowed to "neutralize" bases inside Russia from which Russian forces are launching missiles at Ukrainian targets.
"We should not allow them to touch other targets in Russia, and obviously civilian capacities," Macron said during a visit to Germany.
🇩🇪 🇺🇦 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said Germany would not prohibit Ukrainian attacks on Russian military targets, saying Ukraine "is allowed to defend itself."
He made the comments in a joint show of policy support with French President Emmanuel Macron in Meseburg. pic.twitter.com/jqJctfeD3T
— euronews (@euronews) May 29, 2024
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz—who has so far declined to approve the transfer of his country's Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine—said he agreed with Macron, so long as Kyiv adheres to any restrictions imposed by suppliers.
"Ukraine has every possibility under international law for what it is doing. That has to be said explicitly," Scholz said during a joint press conference with Macron. "I find it strange when some people argue that it should not be allowed to defend itself and take measures that are suitable for this."
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that he also supports letting Ukrainian forces use Western-supplied arms to attack Russia, which launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"The time has come to consider whether it will be right to lift some of the restrictions which have been imposed because we see now that especially in the Kharkiv region, the front line and the borderline is more or less the same," he asserted.
The United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic, and other NATO members also say Ukraine should be permitted to attack targets inside Russia.
In the United States, NATO's most powerful member, there is disagreement within the Biden administration over the policy. While Secretary of State Antony Blinken is reportedly pushing for a change in the administration's stance against the use of U.S.-supplied weapons to attack Russian soil, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that "there's no change to our policy at this point."
"We don't encourage or enable the use of U.S.-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia," Kirby said.
Blinken, speaking in Moldova on Wednesday ahead of NATO talks in Prague, Czech Republic, responded to a question about whether the U.S. would support Ukrainian use of Western-supplied arms to attack Russia by saying that "we're always listening, we're always learning, and we're always making determinations about what's necessary to make sure that Ukraine can effectively continue to defend itself."
"At every step along the way we've adapted and adjusted as necessary," he added. "And so that's exactly what we'll do going forward."
Police in Chișinău, Moldova's capital, violently arrested anti-war demonstrators protesting Blinken's visit. Protesters reportedly doused American flags in beetroot juice simulating blood and chanted messages including "Blinken, go home; we don't want war!" and "We don't need NATO."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular