Last embrace | Gaza. pic.twitter.com/IU0SXqi5Ao

— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) October 12, 2024

At least 28 displaced people, including women and children, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza, while hospitals in the north are ordered to evacuate, amid a major Israeli aggression. | The air raid targeted Rafidah School in Deir al-Balah, which was housing over 1,000 displaced people, on Thursday. According to medics, the strike killed 28 Palestinians and wounded 54 others.

💬 “We were sitting in peace, in front of the school,” Abu Hamza, who was taking refuge at the site, told Middle East Eye, adding that, a huge explosion “broke through three floors of the building” suddenly. “The people took refuge here because it was meant to be safe. But there are no safe places. The Israelis are liars,” he said.

Describing the aftermath of the blast, the 34-year-old Nahed al-Zaneen, who teaches displaced children in tents near Rafidah School, said “I get out and all I see is shreds of bodies all over the floor. Heads blown up, innocent children scattered across the floor.”

■ Gaza home to largest number of amputee children in modern history: UN (Al Mayadeen)
■ Gaza “is Being Erased Before Our Eyes,” UK NGOs Warn (Days of Palestine)
■ Israel prepares to invade and empty the north – again (Electronic Intifada)

Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN strongly condemned Israel’s airstrike on the Iran Red Crescent’s humanitarian aid at the Syrian-Lebanese border, saying that the attack is an undeniable war crime. | "The deliberate targeting of humanitarian and medical facilities by the Israeli regime is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and constitutes an undeniable war crime”, Amir Saeed Iravani Iravani said in letters he wrote to the UN secretary-general and the president of the UN Security Council. The attack, which the Iranian envoy called “heinous and savage”, took place on October 9 and destroyed the Iranian facility and its supplies. The following is the full text of Iravani’s letters:

The US and the UK recently appeared poised to support long-range strikes on Russian territory but backed down after serious warnings from Putin | Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London on Thursday and again asked for permission to use British-provided missiles for long-range strikes inside Russian territory but was denied. ● A spokesperson for Starmer said the UK has not lifted the restrictions on Storm Shadow missiles, which have a range of about 155 miles, and added that “no war has ever been won by a single weapon, and there’s no change in the government’s policy on the use of long-range missiles.” ● According to Zelensky’s office, the Ukrainian leader emphasized to Starmer the “need to obtain permission to strike deep into the territory of Russia.”

■ Hungary Warns Against Allowing Long-Range Strikes Inside Russia (Antiwar)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz affirms that his government has not decided to stop delivering weapons to "Israel" and will provide some soon. | German Chancellor Olaf Scholz denied on Thursday allegations that Berlin had effectively halted arms exports to "Israel", emphasizing that further defense supplies would be sent shortly. ● His stance contrasts with that of French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently suggested an arms embargo on equipment for use in Gaza, prompting a sharp response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. ● Speaking to the German parliament, Scholz said, "We have not decided to stop delivering weapons. We have delivered weapons and we will deliver weapons."

The French leader has accused the IDF of “deliberately” targeting UN peacekeepers | French President Emmanuel Macron has reiterated his call for an arms embargo on Israel in response to the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. He also condemned recent attacks on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, describing them as “totally unacceptable.” ● Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were injured this week after a Merkava tank fired at a watchtower at the force’s headquarters in the border town of Naqoura. Israel claims its forces fired at an immediate threat, but Macron insists that the strike was “deliberate,” echoing the view of the force’s spokesperson, who spoke to RT.

■ Israeli attacks on UN force has been ‘deliberate’ – peacekeepers spokesperson to RT (RT.com)

■ Why Macron wants off the Israel bandwagon (Rachel Marsden) | French President Emmanuel Macron would like Israel to slow its roll now, please. Because it’s acting like a spoiled brat who has been given a Ferrari by the West, and now behaves like the rules of the road don’t exist, blowing past every exit ramp en route to escalation with its neighbors. ■ And now the inevitable has happened: a head-on collision between Israeli and French interests. Because that’s the thing with spoiled brats – the day you say “No,” you, too, become a problem. ■ All this is happening now because Israel has crossed a red line for France in subjecting Lebanon to what the Western establishment would be blatantly calling an “invasion,” if Lebanon were Ukraine and Israel were Russia. French is spoken by about half of the Lebanese population and France considers the country to be within its sphere of influence, both linguistic and economic.

Andrew Korybko | It’s important for the public to be more aware of this since it helps explain Russian and Israeli policies towards one another in the context of the Ukrainian Conflict and the regional Israeli-Resistance War. | There’s been grassroots pressure on Turkiye to cut off Azerbaijan’s oil exports to Israel via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline ever since what can now be described as the regional Israeli-Resistance War broke out one year ago. Activists believe that this trade literally fuels Israel’s war machine and thus makes all the involved parties indirectly complicit in its alleged war crimes. Regardless of whatever one thinks about this claim, what’s interesting is that there’s no such pressure upon Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin began talks with his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in Turkmenistan's capital Ashgabat on Friday, Russian news agencies reported. | The meeting comes amid soaring tensions in the Middle East, with Israeli air strikes on Lebanon's capital Beirut that it says are aimed at Iran-backed Hezbollah. ● Ties between Russia and Iran -- both under Western sanctions -- have strengthened massively since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, with Tehran widely believed to be supplying Moscow with weapons. In a short video published by a Russian state TV reporter, Pezeshkian accused Israel of bombing civilians and being backed by Western powers, according to a Russian translation. ● The leaders are meeting for the first time at a regional summit in the Central Asian country, one of the most reclusive in the world. The Kremlin earlier said the two will discuss mutual relations as well as the situation in the Middle East.

■ Europe, US not interested in de-escalation in Middle East — Iranian president (TASS)
■ ‘Entrenched impunity’: Pezeshkian slams US, Europe supports as Israel continues to kill (PressTV)

While we were being distracted by war and wild weather, the UN passes its worst-ever document, the Pact for the Future that includes a so-called Global Digital Compact. | DR Sherry Tenpenny, a longtime vaccine safety campaigner, has urged Americans to stop the WHO’s latest attempt to impose a literal global digital dictatorship based on a biometric digital identity for all humans. ● Tenpenny has warned that implementation of the Global Digital Compact, which is part of the Pact for the Future, will result in a centrally controlled digital currency system linked to AI with inbuilt punishments for dissidents who do not follow the global agenda. This would include cancellation of access to the digital currency. ● Information control is also a big part of the plan, and is already being promoted through globalist operatives such as Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Keir Starmer, Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab and others in the loop.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is demanding that governments enforce bans on members of the general public growing their own food at home in order to comply with the unelected globalist organization’s “Net Zero” agenda. | The WEF argues that home-grown food creates “emissions” that allegedly cause “global warming.” ● According to so-called “experts” behind a recent WEF study, researchers apparently discovered that the “carbon footprint” of home-grown food is “destroying the planet.” ● As a result, the WEF and other globalist climate zealots are now demanding that governments intervene and ban individuals from growing their own food in order to “save the planet” from “global warming.” Globalists insist that allowing citizens to grow their own food will undermine efforts to meet the goals of the “Net Zero” agenda as dedicated by the WEF and the United Nations (UN).

Slovak government commissioner for pandemic research Peter Kotlar considers mRNA vaccines dangerous and calls for a ban. | Slovak government commissioner for pandemic research Peter Kotlar considers mRNA vaccines dangerous and calls for a ban. He also questions the COVID pandemic itself. In Slovakia, Health Minister Zuzana Dolinkova has resigned, and Kotlar’s report on the investigation into the COVID pandemic, which he presented a week ago, may have been the decisive factor in her decision.