US-made weapon used by Israel in airstrikes

An investigation by Amnesty International alleges that the US made weapons guidance system was used in two Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in October that killed 43 civilians, reports CNN.

Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II, according to the Congressional Research Service. The US on average gives Israel US$3 billion in military aid per year, and the Biden administration sought an additional US$10.6 billion in military aid in the wake of Hamas’ October 07 attack in Israel.

Fragments of the US-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions guidance system were found in the rubble of destroyed homes in the neighborhood of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Israel uses a wide variety of US weapons and munitions, but Amnesty International’s report is one of the first attempts to tie an US-made weapon to a specific attack that left a significant number of civilians dead.

The JDAM is a guidance tail kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, adverse weather smart munitions, according to the US Air Force.

Amnesty International said its weapons experts and a remote sensing analyst examined satellite imagery and photos of the homes that show the fragments of ordnance recovered from the rubble and the destruction, the report explains. Amnesty’s fieldworkers took the photos.

As a result of these two attacks, 19 children, 14 women, and 10 men were killed.

The human rights organization said it did not find any indication that there were any military objectives at the sites of the airstrikes or that the individuals living in the homes were legitimate military targets.

“The organization found that these air strikes were either direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects or indiscriminate attacks,” the report says, calling for the attacks to be investigated as war crimes.

In a statement to CNN, the Israel Defense Forces called the report flawed, biased and premature, based on baseless assumptions regarding the IDF’s operations.

“The assumption that intelligence regarding the military use of a particular structure does not exist unless revealed is contradictory to any understanding of military activity, and the report uses this flawed assumption to imply equally flawed and biased conclusions regarding the IDF, in line with existing biases and prior problematic work by this organization,” the IDF said.

The statement said that the military regrets any harm caused to civilians or civilian property as a result of its operations, and examines all its operations in order to learn and improve.

Amnesty International, in its report, said that the use of American weapons for such strikes should be an urgent wake-up call to the Biden administration.

“The US-made weapons facilitated the mass killings of extended families,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, according to the report.

The US State Department is reviewing Amnesty International’s report, spokesperson Matt Miller said Wednesday.

“We have made clear in our discussions with Israeli leaders that we are deeply concerned about the protection of civilians in this conflict,” Miller said. “We expect Israel to only target legitimate targets and to adhere to the laws of armed conflict.”

The Pentagon on Tuesday said it too was reviewing the report.

“We are going to continue to consult closely with our Israeli partners on the importance of taking civilian safety into account in conducting their operations,” spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told journalists.

“The US may share responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by Israel with US-supplied weapons, as all states have a duty not to knowingly contribute to internationally wrongful acts by other states,” Amnesty warned.

The human rights organization is urging the US government and other governments to stop transferring arms to Israel that more likely than not will be used to commit or heighten risks of violations of international law.

“A state that continues to supply arms being used to commit violations may share responsibility for these violations,” Amnesty said.

 

Massacres in Gaza being done in total darkness

The intense bombing in the last few hours has destroyed the remaining international routes linking Gaza to the outside world. People have lost access to internet and communication services across the Gaza Strip on Friday night as Israel intensified its ground attack and launched what observers described as the largest aerial assault since its latest bombing campaign began nearly three weeks ago.

Al Jazeera reported that it has only sporadic communication with its correspondents on the ground in the besieged Gaza Strip. The outlet has been able to go live intermittently via satellite phones.

Reporting from Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum said, "We don't know anything that is happening in other districts in the territory."

"We are now in a hospital and we are going to be live by satellite as much as we can and every single hour," he continued. "So please, if you can hear us, send that message to the world that we are isolated now in Gaza. We don't have any phone signals. We don't have any internet connections."

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it has "completely lost contact with the operations room in Gaza Strip and all our teams operating there due to the Israeli authorities cutting off all landline, cellular, and internet communications."

"We are deeply concerned about the ability of our teams to continue providing their emergency medical services, especially since this disruption affects the central emergency number '101' and hinders the arrival of ambulance vehicles to the wounded and injured," the group said.

"We are also worried about the safety of our teams working in Gaza Strip as the continuous and intense Israeli airstrikes around the clock indicate that the Israeli authorities will continue to commit war crimes while isolating Gaza from the outside world."

Like Al Jazeera and other outlets, The Associated Press reported trouble contacting people in the Gaza Strip.

"The Associated Press' attempts to reach people in Gaza did not go through," the outlet said Friday.

"We are likely to soon find out about the biggest massacres we've seen yet."

Friday's onslaught came at the tail end of a particularly deadly week in Gaza, where Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 7,000 people in just three weeks. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari announced Friday that in addition to ramping up its airstrikes, the Israeli military is "expanding ground operations" in Gaza ahead of an expected full-scale invasion.

Israel has also largely kept up its illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, depriving the territory of critical necessities—including fuel and electricity—and intensifying the enclave's humanitarian crisis.

Israel's airstrikes have severely damaged Gaza's internet and telecommunications infrastructure, hampering people's ability to communicate with their families and undermining journalists' efforts to inform the world about events on the ground.

On Friday, the Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel announced "a complete disruption of all communication and internet services" due to the Israeli bombardment.

"The intense bombing in the last hour caused the destruction of all remaining international routes linking Gaza to the outside world," the company said.

The London-based watchdog group NetBlocks wrote on social media that "live network data show a collapse in connectivity in the Gaza Strip with high impact to Paltel."

Amid the intense bombing and communications blackout on Friday, Medical Aid for Palestinians director of advocacy Rohan Talbot relayed a message that a colleague delivered just days earlier.

"I'm afraid that there will be massacres and those massacres will be done in total darkness," the unnamed colleague said, according to Talbot.

Palestinian-American political analyst Yousef Munayyer issued a similar warning on Friday.

"The Israeli military is carrying out its biggest strikes since the start of its war on Gaza right now, all the lights and communications are knocked out," he wrote on social media. "We are likely to soon find out about the biggest massacres we've seen yet."

 

Israel accuses Iran for installing advanced anti aircraft batteries in Syria

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria in an attempt to thwart Iranian entrenchment and supply of advanced weapons to not only to Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon but also in countries like Iraq and even further.

While Israeli strikes on Syria have intensified, the response time by Syrian air-defense batteries has become quicker. This has lead to the Israel Air Force (IAF) changing it acts during such operations that include having larger formation during operations so that more targets can be struck at once instead of having jets return to the same target.

In 2018, an F-16 crashed in northern Israel after it was struck by an S-200 missile fired by Syrian forces during an Israeli operation. Syrian missiles have also landed in Israel in recent years, including this year when shrapnel from one missile hit northern Tel Aviv and another errant interceptor missile landed close to the Dimona nuclear site in the Negev Desert.

Iran is a top priority for Israel’s military and Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi has set aside an additional defense budget for war readiness and military exercises. The IAF has also resumed intensive training for scenarios in which Iran’s nuclear facilities are targeted.

In an attempt to challenge Israeli jets, Iran has changed the deployment of its anti-aircraft missile batteries, separating their radars from the missile launchers. Such a move forces more Israeli jets to take part in any possible operation against the country’s nuclear program.

The IAF believes that the defense industry of Iran is robust. While it might not have an air force, its drone capabilities are enormous and pose a major threat to Israel and other regional countries, as evident from the 2019 Aramco attack and the recent attack on Mercer Street earlier this year.

Defense officials have identified an increased amount of Iranian drones in the hands of Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups.

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad group and Hezbollah have all used weaponized drones to carry out attacks after they invested in drone capabilities.

Drones have breached Israeli airspace in recent years, leading the IDF to scramble jets or fire missiles. Hamas used Iranian drones during the last war in May, and several Iranian drones tried to breach Israeli airspace in the North of the country.

Following the attack on Mercer Street, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned that Iran has used its drones in several attacks, and it is “exactly why we must act now against Iran. Iran not only strives to gain nuclear capabilities, but it is also sparking a dangerous arms race and creating instability in the Middle East through militias armed with hundreds of UAVs, in Iran, Yemen, Iraq and other countries.”

Warning that the threat posed by Iran is “not a future threat but a tangible and immediate one,” Gantz vowed that Israel will work to remove any threat against Israeli citizens and interests.

US airstrikes in Afghanistan

During this past week, the US military launched several airstrikes in support of Afghan government forces fighting Taliban, including in the strategically important province of Kandahar. It must be kept in mind that at present United States has no airbases in Pakistan or Central Asian countries.

These strikes demonstrate the US intentions to continue supporting Afghan forces with combat aircraft based outside the country, at least until the scheduled conclusion of the US military withdrawal by 31st August 2021.

The US has a variety of combat aircraft based in the Middle East within range of Afghanistan, including warplanes aboard an aircraft carrier in the region and fighters and bombers in the Persian Gulf area.

These are the first known US airstrikes in Afghanistan since Gen. Scott Miller, the top US commander in the country, relinquished his command and left the country. The authority to launch airstrikes against the Taliban has since been in the hands of Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, who oversees US military involvement in the greater Middle East.

The United States conducted a total of more than four airstrikes in support of Afghan forces. At least two of the strikes were to destroy military equipment, including an artillery piece and a vehicle that the Taliban had taken from Afghan forces. The Afghans requested those strikes, as well as those targeting Taliban fighting positions, including at least one strike in the southern province of Kandahar.

At a Pentagon news conference Wednesday, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Taliban now control about half of the 419 district centers in Afghanistan, and while they have yet to capture any of the country’s 34 provincial capitals, they are pressuring about half of them. As the Taliban seize more territory, the Afghan security forces are consolidating their positions to protect key population centers, including Kabul, he said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that after 31st August the main focus will be on countering threats to the US homeland from extremist groups inside Afghanistan. He added that the administration will provide financial and other kinds of support to Afghan defense forces, even with no combat troops or strike aircraft based there.