News Archives - Page 97 of 377

Why Are Israeli Soldiers Committing Suicide?

CrossFireArabia
July 14, 2025

The number of Israeli soldier committing suicide after serving in Gaza is going up at alarming rates. Just last Thursday a soldier soldier took a gun to his head and fired point-blank.

The incident was at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel. The soldier had just returned from fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the soldier was a member of the notorious Golani Brigade that has been fighting in Gaza soon after 7 October, 2023 and who was being questioned by the Israeli military police for bloody incidents carried out in Gaza.

He had come to the military base for a rest from the fighting but soon found out the military police were waiting for him according to Haaretz.

Its rare to investigate soldiers committing atrocities in Gaza but a probe was opened against him a month ago where it was reported that his commanders decided to confiscate his weapon.

On the night of the incident shooting he slowly took the gun of his friend who was his asleep and pulled the trigger on himself.

Its understood, he was suffering from a sever psychological depression since his close friend was killed in a bomb explosion in Gaza last month.

The number of Israeli soldiers committing suicide have shot up since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

On Sunday, a reserve soldier killed himself in a forest near the northern city of Safed due to psychological problems from the Gaza war.

About 21 soldiers took away their lives in 2024 according the Israel Hayom newspaper. This is while Haaretz said that 42 soldiers committed suicide since the start of the Israeli genocide.

Last week another Israeli soldier took away his life just after celebrating his 24th birthday having served in the wars on Gaza and Lebanon.

“He told me he saw horrors. He couldn’t stand the pain anymore,” the mother of soldier Daniel Edri told Walla News.

“He told me that he saw horrors, and said to me: Mom, I smell the smell of the bodies and I see the bodies all the time,” his mother recalled. He was discharged from the army five months ago and was involved in transporting the bodies of dead Israeli soldiers.

His life stopped after he set himself on fire inside his car outside an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian town of Safad, pointing out that he was mentally disturbed.

Many have long reported that there is a clear mental health crisis in the Israeli army with the highest toll in 13 years of soldiers taking away their lives

News

Israel Kills Two Journalists in Under 48 Hrs

CrossFireArabia
July 14, 2025

Israel killed one more Palestinian journalist, Sunday, in a mass airstrike on Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in southeastern Gaza City.

The strike killed two Palestinians, including journalist Fadi Khalifa, according to medical sources in Gaza.

Khalifa’s death hikes the number of journalists killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s military campaign on Oct. 7, 2023 to 230 according to data by the Gaza Government Media Office.

Israel repeatedly targets journalists in a bid to stop coverage of the genocide, now going to nearly two years. On Thursday, the office said journalist Ahmad Salamah Abu Aisha lost his life after being directly hit in an Israeli drone attack in front of his home in the Sawarha area, west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The office explained that Abu Aisha was killed as a result of a direct attack by Israeli drones in front of his home in the Al-Sawarah area, west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

In a Media Office statement condemned “in strongest terms” the occupation’s systematic targeting and assassination of Palestinian journalists, calling on the International Federation of Journalists, the Federation of Arab Journalists, and all journalistic organizations around the world to condemn these crimes.

The statement also held the Israeli occupation, along with the US administration and countries involved in supporting the aggression, such as Britain, Germany, and France, fully responsible for the continued killing of journalists and media professionals.

Since 7 October, 2023, the occupation forces, with full American support, continued to commit genocidal crimes in Gaza, leaving approximately 195,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced.

News

US Sanctions UN Official For Exposing Genocide

CrossFireArabia
July 12, 2025

The US State Department’s decision to sanction UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, is deeply alarming. It reflects the official US stance against any independent effort to expose the genocide and systematic violations committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

This decision marks a dangerous shift away from the core principles of international law and human rights. It directly targets the United Nations and its mechanisms, undermining the independence of special rapporteurs, who should be protected and supported in carrying out their impartial mandates, not punished for fulfilling them or for recognising crimes as such.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions last Wednesday evening against the Special Rapporteur, citing her efforts to “prompt action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.

Euro-Med Monitor stresses that Francesca Albanese was among the few who demonstrated the moral and professional courage to call events in Gaza what they truly are: a genocide unfolding in full view of the world. She spoke openly about the complicity of major powers, led by the United States, in arming and covering up this crime, and criticised states that failed to act on the arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he transited through their territory or airspace.

Albanese’s work is legitimate and fully aligned with her official mandate from the Human Rights Council, which tasks her with monitoring violations in the occupied Palestinian territories. Her documentation efforts and calls for accountability lie at the heart of that mandate. Calling for accountability is not “warfare,” as Rubio claimed, but an act of upholding international law.

Furthermore, recommending sanctions or an arms embargo is consistent with the peaceful measures permitted under international law to address international crimes. It is entirely unreasonable to treat advocacy for upholding international law as a crime.

The US sanctions violate the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, which grants UN officials, including special rapporteurs, immunity from legal or administrative action for acts or statements made in their official capacity.

Albanese’s reports and statements fall squarely within her official duties and mandate, making her legally protected from any retaliatory or punitive measures, including economic or political sanctions imposed in response to her official work.

As a party to the Convention, the United States is legally obligated to respect the functional immunity of special rapporteurs and refrain from taking any action against them in response to their official work.

Instead of reviewing its harmful policies regarding Israeli crimes, the US administration chose to punish those who exposed its complicity. Sanctioning Albanese is a desperate attempt to suppress the truth and a warning to anyone who dares to defend the victims of Israeli crimes.

Beyond the United States’ blatant double standards and constant use of sanctions as a political tool, this move signals explicit and official opposition to the foundations of international law, including the principle of accountability and the mechanisms for its protection and application. It amounts to a direct assault on international law and a systematic effort to undermine its framework, revealing a clear intent to subordinate the legal order to power and hegemony rather than justice.

The US decision is a clear expression of deepening official complicity in the genocide, not only through military and political support, but also by targeting anyone who seeks to expose or stop it, even through speech or legal means, as seen previously with sanctions against International Criminal Court judges who issued arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals.

Euro-Med Monitor fully supports Francesca Albanese and her principled stance based on international law and moral conscience. These sanctions should provoke widespread international condemnation and genuine solidarity, as they aim to intimidate independent voices and silence witnesses to ongoing crimes.

The United Nations, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, all UN Special Rapporteurs, and the international community must act urgently to safeguard the independence of the international human rights system and prevent it from being held hostage to political blackmail by major powers.

Justice is not a crime, and speaking out about the genocide in Gaza is not a crime; silence and complicity are. The world now faces a crucial test of its commitment to values, the rule of law, and justice.

News

Analysis: Excelling Over Israeli Soldiers

CrossFireArabia
July 6, 2025

Footage of the resistance operations carried out against Israeli forces in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, not only reveals accurate information about the movements and positions of these forces, but also demonstrates a consistency between the execution and the plans laid out for them. They exceed the standards established in military science.

Al Jazeera published exclusive footage on Saturday of two ambushes carried out by the Hamas Qassam Brigades in central Khan Yunis. These ambushes were part of the “Stones of David” series, during which Israeli soldiers were killed and tanks and military vehicles destroyed.

The footage showed the detonation of vehicles and clashes with forces at point-blank range and in open areas. The fighters’ conversations during the operations also revealed a clear understanding of the unit to which these forces belong and their operations.

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) reported that Palestinian fighters have become familiar with the movements and positions of Israeli forces and are attacking them.

However, military expert Major-General Fayez al-Duwairi says that what the IBA is saying is not new, as it was clear in all the operations that took place throughout the months of the war. He points out what is important in these operations “is the implementation of plans with a success rate of up to 99%, while the global consistency rates start at 70%.”

Effective Command and Control

Al-Duwairi says this consistency “confirms the great effectiveness of the command and control system of the resistance factions, which possess accurate information about the occupying forces and base their plans on it.”

The issue is not limited to the high success rates in implementation, but extends to its method which the military expert says has not occurred in any previous war and should be studied in armies and technical colleges, especially those involved in special forces tasked with highly dangerous missions.

Moving a Qassam fighter in an open area while carrying a Shawaza bomb weighing more than 20 kilograms toward a slowly moving 60-ton tank “is not an easy task because this mechanism causes anxiety in the fighter, even if it is stationary,” al-Duwairi says. The world has never witnessed such progress, with the operation being filmed from three directions, as the Qassam Brigades do. This confirms the resistance’s reliance on the weaknesses of this highly advanced mechanism, namely its ability to surprise the enemy from a blind spot, from which it cannot detect the approaching person. This is evidenced by the fighter advancing toward the tank while its commander stood in the turret.

However, advancing toward the vehicle from its blind spot does not mean the operation is easy, as the fighter is required to move quickly in a very limited space. Furthermore, according to the military expert, the time between defusing the explosive device and its detonation does not exceed 10 seconds.

Footage obtained by Al Jazeera showed Qassam fighters raiding Israeli vehicles and soldiers in Khan Yunis on Friday and Thursday. They targeted Merkava tanks and armored personnel carriers with Shawaze explosive devices and Yasin 105 rockets at point-blank range, and clashed with an Israeli rescue force as reprinted in Jo24.

News

Israeli Strikes Beach Cafe With US Bombs

CrossFireArabia
July 3, 2025

The London-based Guardian revealed that the Israeli occupation army used heavy and indiscriminate munitions in the bombing of the Al-Baqa café overlooking the Gaza City beach, Monday evening, killing dozens of civilians. This incident could be classified as a war crime under international law.

According to an analysis of photographs from the attack site conducted by the newspaper, munitions experts confirmed that the shrapnel found at the site belonged to an American MK-82 bomb, a multi-purpose bomb weighing approximately 230 kilograms and producing a massive blast wave with a wide dispersal of shrapnel.

The newspaper added that the use of this type of munition in a densely-populated civilian area, such as the seaside café, “reflects a disproportionate use of force and raises serious legal and ethical questions about the intent and nature of the attack.”

Medicine sources in Gaza, however, reported that the initial toll from the attack was at least 39 dead and more than 100 wounded in less than an hour. The director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza said, “The health situation is completely out of control, and we are forced to differentiate between the wounded according to the severity of their conditions.”

He explained that most of those injured in the bombing are critically injured, stressing that basic medical supplies are running out and that health facilities are close to running out of fuel, threatening to shut them down within hours.

The attack on the Al-Baqaa café comes within the context of an ongoing Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip, amid growing international condemnation of the repeated targeting of civilians and the use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas.

Since 7 October, 2023, the occupying forces, with full American support, have continued to commit crimes of genocide in Gaza, leaving more than 191,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced as reported in Quds Press.