Al Mayadeen – January 19, 2024
Mexico, Chile submit case to ICC against Israeli crimes in Gaza
The two countries say the action comes after "growing concern" regarding the civilian casualties in Gaza.
Mexico and Chile filed a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday, requesting that it probe crimes committed against Palestinians.
According to Anadolu Agency, Mexico's Foreign Ministry called the ICC the best platform for investigating the ongoing war on Gaza, citing it as the most appropriate entity to potentially establish criminal culpability for any offending party.
In a statement, the two countries wrote that the action comes after "growing concern" regarding the civilian casualties in Gaza and "the alleged continued commission of crimes under the Court's jurisdiction" since October 7.
It referenced "numerous United Nations reports" that documented various incidents of violence that might be considered crimes under the Rome Statute by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Furthermore, Mexico stated that Palestine is unable to investigate or punish any crimes committed on its territory or by its citizens owing to the near-total collapse of its national judicial system.
However, "Israel" and the United States are not members of the ICC, hence the Court has no jurisdiction over either state or activities done within their boundaries.
Mexico endorsed a "two-state solution" and reiterated its "commitment to international justice, the prevention of genocide and other war crimes and crimes against humanity."
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/mexico--chile-submit-case-to-icc-against-israeli-crimes-in-g
Daily Sabah – January 19, 2024
Erdoğan says world ‘watches Führer Netanyahu’s genocide of Palestinians’
Addressing an event on Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the "Führer of the present-day" and lamented the international community "watching only in the face of barbaric acts of Netanyahu and his crew amounting to genocide against the Palestinian people."
The president was speaking at the inauguration of new vessels for the Turkish navy in the northwestern province of Yalova.
"We are watching those supporting Israel unconditionally. Those turning a blind eye to the massacres today will regret tomorrow. The Western countries failed the test on Gaza. They lost their credibility. The fascist mindset of those claiming to advocate democracy surfaced. They ignored the murders of women and infants," he added.
Erdoğan champions the Palestinian cause and advocates a two-state solution to the ongoing conflict. He stepped up his criticism of Israel, which was on the brink of fully normalizing relations with Türkiye before a new stage of the conflict erupted on Oct. 7. In December, Erdoğan compared Netanyahu to Hitler. "They used to denounce Hitler. You are no different than Hitler. Hitler was not as rich as them. They have every kind of support from the West, from the United States. They killed more than 20,000 Gazans," Erdoğan said at an event in the capital Ankara last month.
The Conversation – January 18, 2024
Gaza’s Oldest Mosque, Destroyed in Israeli Airstrike,
was once a Pagan Temple, a Church and had Jewish Engravings
Stephennie Mulder
The Omari Mosque in Gaza was largely destroyed by Israeli bombardment on Dec. 8, 2023. It was one of the most ancient mosques in the region and a beloved Gazan landmark.
The mosque was first built in the early seventh century and named after Islam’s second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, a successor to the Prophet Muhammad and leader of the early Islamic community. It was a graceful white stone structure, with repeating vistas of pointed arches and a tall octagonal minaret encircled by a carved wooden balcony and crowned with a crescent.
The lower half of the minaret and a few exterior walls are reported to be the only parts of the mosque still standing.
Gaza is rich in cultural treasures, with some 325 formally registered heritage sites within just 141 square miles, including three designated for UNESCO’s World Heritage tentative list. The Omari Mosque is one of over 200 ancient sites damaged or destroyed in Israeli raids since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
As a scholar of Islamic architecture and archaeology, I know the Omari Mosque as a building that embodies the history of Gaza itself – as a site of frequent destruction, but also of resilience and renewal. While narratives about Gaza often center on war and conflict, Gaza’s rich history and pluralistic identity as expressed through its cultural heritage equally deserve to be known.
Layered histories
The sun-soaked coastal enclave of Gaza, with the tidy stone buildings of its old city and its verdant olive and orange groves, has been a trade hub that connected the Mediterranean with Africa, Asia and Europe for millennia. It was famed in particular as a transit point for incense, one of the ancient world’s most precious commodities. Given its abundant agricultural and maritime riches, Gaza has known conquest by nearly every powerful empire, including the ancient Egyptians, the Romans, the early Islamic caliphs, the Crusaders and the Mongols.
Gaza’s history of repeated conquest meant that buildings were often destroyed, reimagined and rededicated to accommodate changing political and religious practices. New sacred structures were continually built over old ones, and they frequently incorporated “spolia,” or stones reused from prior buildings. The Omari Mosque, too, was such an architectural palimpsest: a building embodying the layered, living material history of the city.
In the second millennium B.C., the site of the mosque is believed to have been a temple for Dagon, the Philistine god of the land and good fortune. The temple is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the one whose walls were felled by the warrior Samson, who is locally believed to be buried in its foundations.
In 323 B.C., Gaza fiercely resisted the conquest of Alexander the Great, and the city endured devastating destruction when it was finally subdued. Yet after Gaza was conquered by the Romans in 50 B.C. it entered a period of renewed wealth and prosperity. A concentric domed temple was built for Marnas, a god of storms and the protector of the city, on the site of the future mosque. He was venerated there until just before 400 A.D., when the Byzantine Empress Eudoxia imposed the new faith of Christianity and ordered the destruction of the temple.
The priests of the temple barricaded themselves inside and hid the statues and ritual objects in an underground room. But the temple was destroyed and a Greek Orthodox church rose in its place. The stones, however, preserved the tale: in 1879 a monumental, 10-foot-high statue of Marnas, portrayed in the guise of Zeus, was excavated and its discovery made international media headlines. The statue is now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.
The Byzantine church, too, was destined to be transformed. In the early seventh century, the Muslim general Amr ibn al-As conquered Gaza, and the church was converted into the Omari Mosque. Yet the continued presence of Gazan churches and synagogues attested to pluralistic norms that characterized the region under various Islamic dynasties until the modern era.
Gaza under Islamic rule
Gaza thrived under Islamic rule: Medieval travelers described it as a remarkably fertile, creative and beautiful city, with prominent Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities. It was still a flourishing urban center when the European Crusaders arrived. When the city fell to the Crusader King of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, in 1100, the Omari Mosque was converted once again – this time into a Catholic cathedral dedicated to St. John the Baptist.
The Muslim general Saladin defeated the Crusaders in 1187, and Gaza returned to Islamic rule. The church was transformed back into a mosque, and in the 13th century its elegant octagonal minaret was raised. Yet the reconversion into a mosque preserved much of the Crusader church, and the majority of the nave and the western portal were still visible in modern times.
It was in this period that the mosque became famed for its extraordinary library containing thousands of books, the earliest dating to the 13th century. After the library of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the Omari Mosque’s collection was one of the richest in Palestine.
In the 13th century, the mosque endured destruction by the Mongols as well as major earthquakes that would repeatedly topple the minaret. Its rebuilding after each of these disasters speaks to the ongoing centrality of the mosque in the communal life of the people of Gaza.
The stones tell the tale
Later, Gaza continued to flourish as a coastal port city, where Muslims, Christians, Jews and others lived in the vast, cosmopolitan Ottoman Empire.
In the late 19th century, as scholars explored Gaza’s heritage, an eloquent reminder of the building’s layered history emerged: a relief on a mosque pillar depicting a seven-branched menorah and Jewish ritual objects, including a shofar, or horn, surrounded by a wreath. The name Hanania, son of Jacob, was engraved in Hebrew and Greek.
Its date is uncertain, but it seems likely to have been a column from a synagogue reused during the building of the Byzantine church, which was used again in the building of the mosque: yet another layer in the architectural palimpsest that was the Omari Mosque.
A few decades later, during World War I, the mosque was severely damaged when a nearby Ottoman arms depot was targeted by British artillery fire. In the 1920s, the stones were once again gathered and the mosque was rebuilt.
After the 1948 creation of the state of Israel, Gaza became the sanctuary of tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees. The area was primarily administered by Egypt until it was captured by Israel in 1967.
It was at some point after the 1967 war, when Jewish symbols had come to be associated with the state of Israel and its occupation of Gaza, that the menorah relief was effaced from the column in the mosque.
A future for the Omari Mosque
On Dec. 8, 2023, Israel became the most recent military force to target the mosque. The library, too, may have been ruined, a treasure house of knowledge that will not so easily be rebuilt. A digitization project completed in 2022 preserves an imprint of the library’s riches. Still, digital files can’t replace the material significance of the original manuscripts.
The hundreds of other heritage sites damaged or destroyed include Gaza’s ancient harbor and the fifth century Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, one of the oldest churches in the world.
From today’s vantage point, it seems extraordinary that the menorah relief had endured for over 1,000 years: a Jewish symbol unremarkably cohabiting inside a Muslim prayer hall. In truth, both the relief and its removal embody the story of Gaza itself, a fitting reminder of the many centuries of destruction, coexistence and resilience embodied in the mosque’s very stones.
And if the Omari Mosque’s richly layered history is any indication, the people of Gaza will raise those stones again.
Stephennie Mulder, Associate Professor of Art History, The University of Texas at Austin
Houthis claim new ‘direct hit’ on American ship
A chemical tanker was sailing from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait when it came under attack
Houthi militants in Yemen have carried out a missile strike on the US-owned tanker Chem Ranger in the Gulf of Aden, the group’s spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree has claimed.
Less than a day after the latest series of US-led airstrikes on Yemen, the Houthis targeted yet another American ship with naval missiles, Saree said in a televised address on Thursday, claiming the attack resulted in “direct hits.”
“The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm that a retaliation to the American and British attacks is inevitable, and that any new aggression will not go unpunished,” he declared.
The US Central Command has confirmed the incident, but reported no injuries or damage to the vessel. The rebels “launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles at M/V Chem Ranger, a Marshall Island-flagged, US-owned, Greek-operated tanker ship,” CENTCOM posted on X (formerly Twitter), stating that the ship continued its journey after the “crew observed the missiles impact the water near the ship.”
The Yemeni militants have carried out dozens of drone and missile attacks in the region since the beginning of the war in Gaza, vowing to continue targeting Israeli-linked vessels until the blockade of Gaza is lifted, and the killing of Palestinians is stopped.
The increased risks faced by ships in the Red Sea have forced the world’s biggest freight firms to avoid the Suez Canal and sent insurance costs soaring. Instead of Suez – the quickest cargo route from Asia to Europe – many vessels are now diverting round the Cape of Good Hope, incurring higher expenses on fuel, maintenance and wages.
The US reacted by leading airstrikes on Yemen last Thursday, as part of the so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian – an international maritime coalition with the stated goal of protecting commercial shipping. While US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby claimed the airstrikes had a “good effect,” a New York Times report a few days later alleged that the majority of Houthi military assets remained functional.
US President Joe Biden has acknowledged that the strikes have not stopped the Houthis, but said on Thursday that the bombing would continue.
https://www.rt.com/news/590922-houthi-attack-us-ship/
Airstrikes have failed to stop Houthis – Biden
US President Joe Biden told reporters on Thursday that American forces would continue to launch military strikes on Houthi targets, despite the fact that the campaign is “not stopping” the Yemeni militants from attacking merchant shipping in the Red Sea.
American warships and submarines stationed in the Red Sea fired a wave of missiles at more than a dozen Houthi launch sites in Yemen on Wednesday night, hours after the rebel group struck a US-owned cargo vessel with a drone. US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said that the American bombardment would “degrade the Houthis’ capabilities to continue their reckless attacks on international and commercial shipping.”
Asked on Thursday whether strikes on Yemen were working to deter the Houthis, Biden responded: “When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”
Wednesday’s missile strikes marked the fourth time that US forces have attacked Houthi targets in Yemen since last week. American and British warplanes launched a barrage of around 70 missiles on Houthi targets last Thursday and Friday, with the US launching follow-up strikes on Saturday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Shortly after Biden spoke, Central Command announced that American forces had launched another strike, targeting Houthi missiles it claimed were ready to fire at commercial ships.
In between these strikes, Houthi forces have continued to attack ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The militant group hit a US-owned container ship with a ballistic missile on Monday and a Greek-owned carrier bound for Israel on Tuesday, before hitting the US-owned vessel on Wednesday.
Houthi forces have attacked dozens of commercial ships since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, vowing to continue until the war ends and the Israeli blockade on Gaza is lifted. While the militants initially said they would target only “Israel-linked” vessels or ships bound for Israeli ports, a Houthi spokesman said this week that in order for a ship to be targeted, “it is enough for it to be American.”
Around 15% of the world’s shipping traffic uses the Red Sea and Suez Canal to journey between the Arabian and Mediterranean seas. In response to the Houthi attacks, major transportation firms, including Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, and Hapag-Lloyd have rerouted their ships around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa – a far longer route between Asia and Europe.
https://www.rt.com/news/590915-houthi-airstrikes-failed-biden/
Information Clearing House – January 19, 2024
Decoding Iran’s missile, drone strikes
Russia’s commitment to signing a strategic pact with Iran and the evolving US-Pakistan relations indicate broader realignments in the Middle East.
By M.K. Bhadrakumar
The stunning missile and drone strikes on three countries — Syria, Iraq and Pakistan — over a period of 24 hours and Tehran taking the extraordinary step of announcing its responsibility for the attacks conveyed a very big message to Washington that its stratagem to create a coalition of terror groups in the region surrounding Iran will be resolutely countered.
That the US strategy against Iran was taking new forms began emerging after the October 7 attack on Israel and the consequent erosion of its standing as the regional supremo. The China-brokered Iran-Saudi rapprochement and the induction Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt into BRICS put the US strategists in panic mode. See my analysis titled US embarks on proxy war against Iran, Indian Punchline, November 20, 2023.
There were signs already by the latter half of 2023 that the US with Israeli axis was planning to use terrorism as the only viable means to weaken Iran and restore the regional balance back in favour of Tel Aviv, which is critically important for Washington’s prioritisation of Asia-Pacific and yet need to control oil-rich Middle East. Indeed, a conventional war with Iran is no longer feasible for the US, as it risks the potential destruction of Israel.
Future historians are sure to study, analyse and arrive at sober conclusions as regards the attacks on Israel by Palestinian resistance groups on October 7. In classic military doctrine, they were quintessentially a pre-emptive strike by resistance groups before the US-Israeli juggernaut of terrorist groups — such as ISIS and Mujahideen-e-Khalq — turned into a rival platform matching the Axis of Resistance.
Tehran is cognisant of the urgent necessity to carve out strategic depth before the wolves close in. Tehran has been pressing Moscow to expedite a bilateral strategic pact but Russians, unsurprisingly, took time over it. One key agenda item during President Ebrahim Raisiﾒs ﾓworking visitﾔ to Moscow on December 7 to meet with President Putin was the finalisation of the pact.
On Monday, finally, the Russian Defence Ministry disclosed in a rare statement that Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu called his Iranian counterpart Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani to convey that Moscow has agreed to sign the pact. The MoD statement stated:
“Both sides stressed their commitment to the fundamental principles of the Russian-Iranian relations, including unconditional respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which will be confirmed in the major intergovernmental treaty between Russia and Iran as this document is being finalised already.”
According to Iranian news agency IRNA, Shoigu conveyed that Russia’s commitment to Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity will be explicitly stated in the pact. The report added that “the two ministers also pointed out the importance of issues related to regional security and emphasised that Moscow and Tehran will continue their joint efforts in establishing a multipolar world order and negating the unilateralism of the United States.” [Emphasis added]
On Wednesday, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, told reporters in Moscow that the new treaty would consolidate the strategic partnership between Russia and Iran and cover the full range of their ties. “This document is not just timely, but also overdue,” said Zakharova.
“Since the signing of the current treaty, the international context has changed and relations between the two countries are experiencing an unprecedented upswing,” she took note. Zakharova said the new treaty was expected to be signed during what she described as one of the upcoming contacts between the two presidents.
Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by the TASS state news agency as saying that an exact date for a meeting between Putin and Raisi is to be determined. Clearly, something of profound significance to the geopolitics of the Middle East is happening in front of our eyes.
Suffice to say, Iran’s missile and drone strikes against terrorist targets on Wednesday are a vivid demonstration of its assertiveness to act in self-defence in the new regional and international milieu. Iran’s so-called “proxies” — be it Hezbollah or Houthis — have reached adulthood with a mind of their own, who would decide their own strategic positioning within the Axis of Resistance. They don’t require a life-support system from Tehran. It may take some time for the Anglo-Saxon strategists to get used to this new reality, but eventually they will.
Clearly, it is an underestimation to regard Iran’s missile and drone strikes as merely counter-terrorist operations. Even with regard to the strike on Baluchistan, interestingly, it took place within a month of COAS Gen. Asim Munir’s weeklong trip to Washington in mid-December.
Munir met senior US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, US Forces Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q Brown, and US Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer — and, of course, the redoubtable Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, the driving force behind the Biden administration’s neocon policies.
An official statement in Islamabad December 15 on Munir’s high-flying tour stated that Pakistan and the US “intend to increase interactions” for “mutually beneficial” engagements. It said the two sides discussed the ongoing conflicts in the region and “agreed to increase interactions between Islamabad and Washington.”
The statement said, “Matters of bilateral interests, global and regional security issues, and ongoing conflicts were discussed during the meetings. Both sides agreed to continue engagement for exploring potential avenues of bilateral collaboration in pursuit of shared interests.”
The statement added that during the meeting between the top defence officials of the two countries, “counter-terrorism cooperation and defence collaboration were identified as core areas of cooperation.” On his part, Munir underscored the importance of “understanding each other’s perspectives” on regional security issues and developments affecting strategic stability in South Asia, according to the Pakistani statement.
Pakistan has an entire history of serving American interests in the region and the GHQ in Rawalpindi has been the charioteer of such collaboration. What is on evidence today is that the forthcoming elections in Pakistan did not discourage the Biden administration from rolling out the red carpet for Munir. But the good part is that both Iran and Pakistan are smart enough to know each other’s red lines.
The US intentions are clear: outflank Tehran in the west and east with failing states that are easy to manipulate. The hastily arranged meetings in Davos between the US National Security advisor Jake Sullivan and top Iraq officials (here and here) in the downstream of the Iranian strikes underscored
- “the importance of (Kurdistan) resuming oil exports (to Israel) and Washington’s support for “the Kurdistan region’s strong partnership with the United States”;
- the importance of stopping attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria;
- US commitment to “enhancing security cooperation as part of a long-term, sustainable defence partnership”;
- US support for Iraqi sovereignty; and,
- Biden’s invitation for Iraqi Prime Minister Sudani to visit the White House “soon.”
- In a nutshell, Sullivan has voiced the US’ intention to strengthen its presence in Iraq — and it has similar objectives to pursue in Pakistan too. Washington trusts Munir to ensure that Imran Khan languishes in jail no matter the outcome of the Pakistani elections.
This strategic realignment comes at a time when Afghanistan has conclusively slipped out of the Anglo-American orbit and Saudi Arabia shows no interest to be a cog in the American wheel or dabble with the forces of extremism and terrorism.
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/01/19/decoding-irans-missile-drone-strikes/13/
Defense News – January 18, 2024
Pakistan’s Air Force says it has a hypersonic-capable missile
By Usman Ansari
ISLAMABAD — The Pakistan Air Force has revealed the existence of a hypersonic missile capability, noting on social media and in a news release that the weapon is part of a wider modernization effort “to counter evolving threats.”
The service said the capability is meant to help create a “potent force and to rebalance the power dynamics in the region” under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu.
Other modernization efforts have included the “acquisition of J-10C fighter jets, Unmanned Aerial Systems, modern electronic warfare platforms, force multipliers, state-of-the-art integrated air defense systems, air mobility platforms, [and High Mobility Air Defense Systems],” the service said.
The Air Force did not respond to Defense News’ questions by press time for further information about the hypersonic missile.
Pakistan’s main supplier of military equipment, China, unveiled its air-launched YJ-21E hypersonic missile at the 2022 Zhuhai Airshow. However, a H-6K Badger bomber carried the weapon — an aircraft type not in service with Pakistan.
Timothy Wright, a military analyst the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said Pakistan’s hypersonic missile is likely not a new weapon, but rather the CM-400AKG, which the country acquired five years ago for its JF-17 Thunder jets. The service’s release included a video featuring the CM-400AKG missile.
“According to the missile’s manufacturer [Aviation Industry Corporation of China], the CM-400AKG can travel at hypersonic [Mach 5-plus] speeds,” he told Defense News. “However, there has not been an independent assessment of this claim.”
“It is possible the missile is instead a high-supersonic system” reaching speeds between Mach 3 and Mach 4.9, he added.
However, he said, Pakistan’s claim that it has a hypersonic-capable missile may be due to factors during the specific launch.
“The missile’s high speed might be achieved by the missile’s supposed flight trajectory, most of which takes place at high altitudes where it will encounter less drag, after which the missile descends toward its target,” he explained.
Usman Ansari is the Pakistan correspondent for Defense News.
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