Gaza’s Health Ministry says 49 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces during the weekly anti-occupation protests in the besieged coastal enclave.

Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesman for the ministry, said in a Tweet that 22 children were among those wounded during the Friday’s protests in eastern Gaza.

He noted that 21 of the total number of injuries were caused by live ammunition used by Israeli troops.

Palestinians have been holding weekly rallies in Gaza since last year to protest the siege on the enclave and stress the right to return of the Palestinians who have been externally displaced by Israeli aggression since 1948.

At least 307 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces ever since the anti-occupation protest rallies began in the Gaza Strip on March 30, 2018. Over 18,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.

Hundreds of Israeli Jewish settlers yesterday raided Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City and thousands raided the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron’s Old City, Wafa news agency reported.

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel and Jewish Rabbi Yehuda Glick led the Jewish settlers to Al-Aqsa Mosque and performed Talmudic rituals, marking the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur or Atonement Day.

In Hebron, Israeli occupation forces prevented the Palestinians from entering the Ibrahimi Mosque to allow the thousands of settlers who raided the Muslim holy site.

Israeli foreign minister Yisrael Katz revealed on Sunday that he is involved in an initiative to forge non-aggression pacts with Arab Gulf states.

He said the effort had the backing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Since the apparent death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan prison, much has come to light about his depraved activities and methods used to sexually abuse underage girls and entrap the rich and powerful for the purposes of blackmail. Epstein’s ties to intelligence, described in-depth in a recent MintPress investigative series, have continued to receive minimal mainstream media coverage, which has essentially moved on from the Epstein scandal despite the fact that his many co-conspirators remain on the loose.

Israel’s Minister of the Interior says he is taking action to force Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, out of the country.

I intend to act quickly to deprive Omar Barghouti of residency status in Israel… This is a man who does everything to harm the country and therefore must not enjoy the right to be a resident of Israel.

Aryeh Deri said he had directed the Population and Immigration Authority to prepare a legal opinion aimed at Barghouti’s deportation.

The announcement comes after Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber notified Deri’s office that it had the authority to revoke Barghouti’s residency. The legal basis: a 2018 amendment to the residency law, listing “breach of trust” as a crime which may justify stripping a residency status. Barghouti married a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and lives under the residency status in the city of Acre.

Palestinians said the social media giant was giving in to the Israeli government’s influence to suppress the Palestinian narrative and was adopting the occupiers' definition of what incitement is.

A veteran Israeli activist has accused doctors of enabling the torture of Palestinian prisoners.

Writing in +972 Magazine, Dr. Ruchama Marton, who founded Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR), declared how “troubled” she has been by the way that “Israeli doctors cooperate with and enable Israel’s torture industry”.

Addressing the current case of Samer Arbeed, a Palestinian detainee hospitalised after being tortured during interrogation, Marton dismissed the “absurd” denial issued by Shin Bet, who rejected the claim that their agents were somehow responsible for his condition.

Israel’s District Planning and Building Committee considered a plan on Sunday submitted by the Bedouin Settlement Authority in the Negev which aims to build camps as preparation for the displacement of 36,000 Arab citizens, Arab48.com has reported. The plan targets Palestinian-Arab residents within Israel who live in Bedouin villages “unrecognised” by the Israeli occupation government.

Such villages have often been in place for hundreds of years before the creation of the Israeli occupation state. Nevertheless, it is insisting on displacing their residents and replacing the villages with housing projects for Jewish Israeli settlers.

An anti-Iran alliance forged between the leaders of the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia is faltering as each have become overwhelmed by their own dilemmas, Israel's leading daily Haaretz reports.

“The three leaders who have led the anti-Iran line in recent years were each absorbed in his own domestic crisis this week,” Haaretz wrote on Thursday.

The Israeli paper pointed to the recently intensified impeachment inquiry surrounding US President Donald Trump and pre-indictment hearings threatening the tenure of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the past week as signs that the two leaders were mired in crisis.

American pop star and actress Demi Lovato has been accused of ignorance on the Palestinian issue after she posted several photos from her sponsored trip to Israel with lengthy captions praising the country as “absolutely magical”.

Many have accused the 27-year-old singer of ignoring the apartheid system affecting Palestinians as she is pictured exploring landmarks such as the Western (Al-Buraq) Wall, and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Her fans took to Twitter to highlight the racist Israeli policies enforced on Palestinians including the destruction of their homes, land grabs and being denied their rights to live, work and move freely. The backlash was so great, Lovato blocked the comment feature on Instagram.

A senior Iranian military commander hailed the country’s deterrence system as one that has helped keep enemies at bay and offset economic pressures exerted on the Islamic Republic by the US and its allies over the past year.

The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has cautioned Israel against waging a new war, saying any such “mistake” would lead to annihilation.

To prove the point, Major General Hossein Salami, when taking the floor at a meeting of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei with senior commanders of the IRGC on Wednesday, stressed that Tel Aviv is no longer viewed as a threat due to an upgrade in his country’s deterrence capacity.

“Any new war will lead to the total disappearance of this regime from the world’s political geography”, he uttered, adding that Israel is well aware any small mistake “will be its last”.

Over the past two decades, Israel and Arab Gulf monarchies have forged a tacit partnership, increasingly aligning their interests and agendas, while hiding behind a public perception of being enemies.

Saudi-Israeli links are not new. They’ve made covert contacts through back-channels since Sheikh Kamal Adham’s time, when he ran the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate from 1965 to 1979. Though still having no official diplomatic relations, in recent years the Kingdom and Israel have put far less effort into concealing their unspoken strategic partnership.

Former Israeli army chief Yair Golan warned Israel could share the same fate as Nazi Germany as a result of the growing influence of extremist religious forces.
"We must be careful, very careful, because among us there are radicals with a messianic outlook who will use Israeli democracy," Golan said in a radio interview Thursday.

"I remind everyone that the Nazis came to power in a democratic manner," the left-wing politican added.

The neocons are not about to give up and admit defeat. Due primarily to Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, the presence of the Islamic State is now considerably reduced in Syria.

This is, of course, unacceptable for the neocons and Trump’s State Department, so last week Sec. State Pompeo accused Syria once again of using chemical weapons.

There is no evidence this incident occurred. This is the case with all of the supposed chemical attacks in Syria.

From The Guardian, May 22, 2019.

In geographical terms, this implies a future shift of military forces away from the Persian Gulf, Middle East and North Africa to the Far East. This is for the purposes of containing and surrounding (militarily, economically and technologically) Washington’s primary peer competitor, namely China.

Beijing, in response to this encirclement, has a card up its sleeve. It can seek to replace the reserve-currency status of the US dollar by not only coming to Iran’s aid, which is fundamental to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but also, at a later stage, seeking to woo Saudi Arabia (and OPEC) away from selling oil exclusively in US dollars. Moscow, with the development of OPEC+, can help its Chinese ally, shaping the LNG market with prices quoted in currencies other than the US dollar. Currently, Beijing and Moscow are trading in hydrocarbons by completely bypassing both the SWIFT payment system as well as the US dollar.

Contest organizers decline to state penalty imposed after icelandic competitors Hatari brandished scarves with Palestinian flags during announcement of final results at close of annual event held this May in Tel Aviv

Iraq's head of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) - a coalition of some 70, mostly Shia militias - met with US Defence Secretary Mark Esper in Washington on Wednesday.

Falih al-Fayyadh's visit comes a day after Iraq's prime minister directly blamed Israel for a series of airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed PMF forces in the country.

Al-Fayyadh is considered one of the more moderate voices in the PMF, also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, and has sought to rein in calls to target US interests in Iraq made by factions loyal to Iran.

According to a brief statement released by his office, Alfayyadh met Esper in the presence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and discussed the relationship between the two countries.

A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.

Since the apparent death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan prison, much has come to light about his depraved activities and methods used to sexually abuse underage girls and entrap the rich and powerful for the purposes of blackmail. Epstein’s ties to intelligence, described in-depth in a recent MintPress investigative series, have continued to receive minimal mainstream media coverage, which has essentially moved on from the Epstein scandal despite the fact that his many co-conspirators remain on the loose.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political and personal future hangs in the balance this week, as a pretrial hearing weighing whether to indict him on corruption charges kicked off.

Following the four-day hearing which began Wednesday, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit will decide whether to indict Israel’s longest serving prime minister on fraud and bribery charges in three corruption cases.

Sources told Reuters that members within Saudi Arabia's ruling family and business elites are increasingly becoming frustrated with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) after the largest-ever attack on Saudi oil facilities on September 14, reported Reuters.

Distinguished members within the ruling Al Saud family have expressed deep concern about MbS' ability to defend and lead the world's largest oil exporter, according to a senior foreign diplomat and five sources with ties to the Al Saud family, all spoke on condition of anonymity to Reuters.

Some of the sources said the September 14 attacks fueled unwanted tensions in the Middle East, especially the threat of imminent war with Iran.

"There is a lot of resentment" about the crown prince's ability to lead, said one of the sources, a member of the Saudi elite with royal connections. "How were they not able to detect the attack?"

Last week, a Palestinian detainee arrested by Israeli occupation forces was admitted to a Jerusalem hospital suffering from severe injuries, including broken ribs and kidney failure.

Samir Arbeed, 44 and in good health when detained, had been tortured during his interrogation at the hands of Shin Bet agents. According to reports, the agents had been given permission by an Israeli “judicial body” to use “exceptional ways to investigate”.

The treatment meted out to Arbeed in custody has prompted strong condemnation from Palestinian and international human rights campaigners, with Amnesty International describing the “legally sanctioned torture” as “utterly outrageous”.

The full text of the Israel-Jordan gas deal has been revealed for the first time since it was signed in September 2016.

The Jordanian government has classified the document, but it was leaked to media over the summer by Jordanian lawmaker Saleh al-Armouti.

Al-Armouti had earlier disclosed some of its contents during a press conference.

The document provided by al-Armouti appears to be a translation into Arabic of an English-language original which has not been published.

The contents confirm suspicions that the Jordanian government misled the public about its involvement in the deal, as well as the conditions for its cancellation and its implications for the Jordanian economy.

For the New Year of the Jews 5780 (2020) I feel marginalized, among many others who are working to end the illegal occupation of Palestine. The Jewish New Year festival literally means “head of the year” and initiates the ten days of penance that end in Yom Kippur, literally “day of atonement”. If you read the many greetings to the Jewish New Year, from politics and religion, then you can literally feel the Transfiguration of a religion that flourished despite the Holocaust in Germany – if, for example, Chancellor Merkel in her congratulation so flowery formulated as: “It is a unique and wonderful proof of trust and a great enrichment for our country, that Jewish life could blossom again after the collapse of civilization of the Shoah … At the same time, courageous people stand up for our values.

I did not survive Auschwitz to keep silent on new injustice

immy Carter announces his run for the presidency in 1974. During his bid for re-election in 1979, it is alleged he covered up a nuclear weapons explosion carried out by Israel and apartheid South Africa. | AP
Former President Jimmy Carter covered up a nuclear weapon test by Israel in 1979, declassified reports have suggested. His administration feared that making the discovery public would damage his bid for re-election.

U.S. satellites picked up a “double flash” signal associated with a nuclear explosion in the South Indian Ocean in September 1979. This led to an emergency at the White House, according to Foreign Policy magazine which obtained the documents.

Israel continues to sell arms to the world’s most oppressive regimes, but the courts won’t let the media cover the story.

The Israeli government is deliberately targeting Palestinian journalists in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Ministry of Information, on the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian journalists, reported that the number of human rights violations, from the beginning of year 2019 to the end of August 2019, totaled 415; this included 82 journalists who were injured while covering the Great Return March, in Gaza.

The Ministry pointed out that Palestinian journalists became a central target of Israeli occupation forces during their coverage of the ongoing demonstration, which began on March 30, 2018, along the eastern border of the Gaza Strip.

A new documentary has revealed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — also known as MbS — had promised US President Donald Trump to recognize Israel and normalize ties with the regime if the United States helped him “defeat Iran and take control of the Middle East.”

According to PBS documentary 'The Crown Prince,' which was broadcast on Saturday, the kingdom’s de facto ruler made the pledge in a meeting with President Trump during his visit to Riyadh in May 2017.

A high-ranking commander of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUS) says Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi’s confirmation of the Israeli regime’s responsibility for a string of attacks on positions of the Iraqi pro-government forces makes retaliation legitimate.

Abu Ala al-Walai, Commander of the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (the Master of Martyrs Battalions) group, which operates under the command of the voluntary forces – better known by the Arabic word Hashd al-Sha’abi, wrote on his Twitter page on Tuesday that the Iraqi premier’s comments were “a green light to retaliate against Israel.”

Abdul-Mahdi said in an interview with the Doha-based Arabic-language al-Jazeera television news network on Monday, “Investigations into the targeting of some Popular Mobilization Forces positions indicate that Israel carried it out.”

On 76th Friday Great March of Return: Palestinian civilian killed and 86 civilians injured
PCHR 28 Sept — On 76th Friday of Great March of Return, a Palestinian civilian was killed and 86 civilians were injured as a result of the Israeli military’s continued use of excessive force against the peaceful protests along the Gaza Strip’s eastern border; 22 children, 4 female paramedics, 5 male paramedics and 2 persons with disabilities were among those injured this Friday, 27 September 2019. This week witnessed an escalation in the use of excessive force against the protesters as injury of 5 of them was deemed serious; one died after hours of his injury while 4, including a child and a female paramedic, are still in a very serious condition.

It would be a grave mistake to assume that the continuing political deadlock in Israel – with neither incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main rival Benny Gantz seemingly able to cobble together a coalition government – is evidence of a deep ideological divide.

In political terms, there is nothing divided about Israel. In this month’s general election, 90 per cent of Israeli Jews voted for parties that identify as being either on the militaristic, anti-Arab right or on the religious, anti-Arab far-right.

The two parties claiming to represent the centre-left – the rebranded versions of Labour and Meretz – won only 11 seats in the 120-member parliament.

Stranger still, the three parties that say they want to form a “broad unity government” won about 60 per cent of the vote.

It is interesting to note how the Israel Lobby is able to manage and contain the commentary of groups in America that might normally be critical of Israeli policies vis-à-vis the United States. A recent article by Professor Andrew Bacevich entitled “President Trump, Please End the American Era in the Middle East” is a good example of how self-censorship by authors works. The piece appeared as one of Bacevich’s regular weekly contributions to The American Conservative website under the rubric “Realism and Restraint.”

A new report by a United Nations expert gives Israel and its lobby carte blanche to smear the movement for Palestinian rights as anti-Semitic.

Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, issued the report ostensibly focused on anti-Semitism in late September.

It adopts a controversial definition of anti-Semitism which is being promoted by Israel and its lobby groups.

Human rights defenders have long warned that the so-called IHRA definition conflates criticism of Israel and its state ideology Zionism, on the one hand, with anti-Jewish bigotry, on the other.

The spokesman for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's administration has confirmed that Saudi leaders have been sending messages to Iran's president through a head of state, though refraining to give any details on the nature of those messages.

Ali Rabiei made the remarks during his weekly press briefing in Tehran on Monday, when he was asked about reports denoting that the Saudi leadership has been sending messages to Iran's chief executive.

“Yes, this is true that they have sent messages to Mr. Rouhani through a head of state,” Rabiei noted, adding, “We must see signs of it [Saudi’s goodwill] without any ambiguity, and the first sign of it is to stop the aggression against Yemen and put an end to the massacre of Yemenis.”

in his interview with 60 Minutes, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tried to do some damage control on the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, and the ongoing war in Yemen. The focus ultimately was brought back to the Saudis’ favorite topic, Iran.

In a surprising turn of events, Benjamin Netanyahu will be given yet another chance to hold onto his title as Prime Minister — a potential lifeline for the premiere who is facing an impending indictment on charges of corruption and bribery.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin announced on Wednesday evening that he would be giving Netanyahu the first shot at forming a governing coalition, over his opponent Benny Gantz.

For now, Netanyahu has up to six weeks to cobble together a 61-seat majority. If he fails, as he did in April, the chance to form a majority may be given to Gantz and his running mate Yair Lapid.

For a more scientific take on the Jewish origin debate, recent DNA analysis of Ashkenazic Jews – a Jewish ethnic group – revealed that their maternal line is European. It has also been found that their DNA only has 3% ancient ancestry which links them with the Eastern Mediterranean (also known as the Middle East) – namely Israel, Lebanon, parts of Syria, and western Jordan. This is the part of the world Jewish people are said to have originally come from – according to the Old Testament. But 3% is a minuscule amount, and similar to what modern Europeans as a whole share with Neanderthals. So given that the genetic ancestry link is so low, Ashkenazic Jews most recent ancestors must be from elsewhere.

Israel’s election results are in. In terms of narrow party-focused politics, the results were inconclusive. The two main electoral lists resulted in a near draw.

According to the final vote tally, the Blue and White electoral alliance – led by two former Israeli generals and an ex-TV news presenter – ended narrowly ahead with 33 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

But they were only a single seat ahead of the ruling Likud Party of the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who won 32 seats.

Nonetheless, the Israeli president has just provided Netanyahu with the first opportunity to form a government, since the incumbent obtained more recommendations from incoming lawmakers overall.

Atlanta activists are reigniting their fight against the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), a program where police officers and law enforcement officials receive training from human violators such as Israel.

Another mystery airstrike was conducted over Iraq late Friday night, after a summer that's witnessed Baghdad blame Israel for a series of unprecedented violations of its airspace to carry out alleged strikes on Iran-linked Shia militias in the country.

This newest incident involved an attack on Imam Ali base near the border with Syria, in an area which Israeli defense officials have voiced concern Iran is utilizing Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) to aid Syrian forces in establishing a security corridor stretching along the Syrian-Iraq border, or so-called Iranian "land bridge".

The creation of Israel by seizing Palestinian land and expelling its 90 per cent Arab population is the root cause of terrorism, the Prime Minister of Malaysia Dr Mahathir Mohamad said in his speech at the UN, reports Malay Mail.

The Malaysian PM stated that since the creation of Israel “…wars have been fought in many countries, many related to the creation of Israel. And now we have terrorism when there was none before, or at least none on the present scale.”

Making his comments at the General Debate of the 74th UN General Assembly in New York, he added: “Military action against acts of terrorism will not succeed. We need to identify the cause and remove it. But the great powers refuse to deal with the root cause.”

For nearly four years, Katharina von Schnurbein has been posing as a champion of Europe’s Jews.

If taken at face value, her speeches at numerous conferences suggest she is a conscientious civil servant motivated by a desire to halt persecution. A more detailed examination reveals she has been following an agenda set by Israel and its supporters.

The real objective of this agenda has been to muzzle the Palestine solidarity movement.

With sorrow and anger, Harbi Abu Al-Kbash, a resident of the west bank's Jordan Valley, could not access to water due to the closure by Israeli army forces with barbed wires and surveillance cameras, banning Palestinians from using them.

Abu Al-Kbash lives in Homsa community in the Jordan Valley, which is considered a hot point in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Jordan Valley, which covers approximately one third of the West Bank area, is considered highly strategic and fertile area.

Nearly 200 Jewish extremists stormed Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in the Islamic faith, on Sunday morning.
They were protected by Israeli police and led by the Israeli Minister of Agriculture, Uri Ariel, and extremist Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who lectured the intruders on the temple which Jewish extremists want to build at the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which advocates the rights of Palestinian inmates, says prisoner Samer al- Arbeed has been taken to hospital in a critical condition as a result of brutal torture at a detention center in the occupied territories.

Addameer said on Sunday that the 44-year-old father of three was arrested on September after a special unit of the Israeli forces raided the central occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

During the arrest, Samer was harshly beaten by Israeli forces using their guns. He was then taken to Mascobiyya interrogation center in Jerusalem al-Quds and an order was issued immediately, banning him from meeting his lawyer.

SOURCE: PEPE ESCOBAR VIA THE SAKER

“It is clear to us that Iran bears responsibility for this attack. There is no other plausible explanation. We support ongoing investigations to establish further details.”

The statement above was not written by Franz Kafka. In fact, it was written by a Kafka derivative: Brussels-based European bureaucracy. The Merkel-Macron-Johnson trio, representing Germany, France and the UK, seems to know what no “ongoing investigation” has unearthed: that Tehran was definitively responsible for the twin aerial strikes on Saudi oil installations.

“There is no other plausible explanation” translates as the occultation of Yemen. Yemen only features as the pounding ground of a vicious Saudi war, de facto supported by Washington and London and conducted with US and UK weapons, which has generated a horrendous humanitarian crisis.

So Iran is the culprit, no evidence provided, end of story, even if the “investigation continues.”

As expected, the outcome of Israel’s second national election was as murky as the first round in April. During the next few weeks, Israeli leaders will be engaged in negotiations in an effort to form a government. The double-dealings and the betrayals that will need to occur for them to form a governing coalition will make “House of Cards” look like a tea party.

SOURCE: COMMON DREAMS
Warning: This story contains graphic images and video.

A Saudi Arabia-led coalition attack on Yemen Tuesday killed 16 people, including seven children, the latest massacre in the years long conflict.

"These children should not be victims of this conflict," Save the Children in Yemen country director Tamer Kirolos told Middle East Eye. "Yet, they have paid the highest price imaginable. We're calling for an independent investigation into the attack and for perpetrators to be held to account."

(@MohammedHojily) September 24, 2019

The attack was took place in Dhalea province, an area controlled by Houthi rebels, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

The Saudi-led war on Yemen—backed by the U.S. government—has raged for over four years.

According to Al Jazeera, the Houthis had hoped for a mutual drawdown in hostilities.

SOURCE: COMMON DREAMS
Warning: This story contains graphic images and video.

A Saudi Arabia-led coalition attack on Yemen Tuesday killed 16 people, including seven children, the latest massacre in the years long conflict.

"These children should not be victims of this conflict," Save the Children in Yemen country director Tamer Kirolos told Middle East Eye. "Yet, they have paid the highest price imaginable. We're calling for an independent investigation into the attack and for perpetrators to be held to account."

(@MohammedHojily) September 24, 2019

The attack was took place in Dhalea province, an area controlled by Houthi rebels, China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

The Saudi-led war on Yemen—backed by the U.S. government—has raged for over four years.

According to Al Jazeera, the Houthis had hoped for a mutual drawdown in hostilities.

On September 21, an EW unit of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) intercepted and took control of a large quadcopter-style unmanned aerial vehicle over the town of Erneh, near the contact line between the SAA and the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan Heights.

According to local sources, the UAV was likely operated by Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) used similar UAVs in its attack on a Hezbollah media center in Lebanon’s Beirut on August 25. In own turn, Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli military, claimed that the UAV was not belonging to the IDF. Lt. Col. Adraee said that the UAV may have been “Iranian”.

Following the incident, the SAA has reinforced its positions near the Golan Heights.

The situation is escalating in the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone, where militants have resumed their attacks on government positions.

While President Trump has said that the US is not interested in a war with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, took to a UN meeting to suggest that US military options are still being considered.

While it seems a bit presumptive for the Saudi FM to decide to speak to US policy, his comments that US patience is “not inexhaustible” seems to be directed both at threatening Iran, and at trying to get the rest of the world on board with the conflict.

Al-Jubeir says that the UN report on the attack will be available soon, and that there is a whole list of options, including military options, still being considered, with him wanting to mobilize international support for what is to come.

Published: September 24, 2019
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SOURCE: MINT PRESS
Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran are escalating to new heights, drawing the United States into a confrontation with the Islamic Republic after a sophisticated attack targeted Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil facility — the largest oil processing facility in the world — knocking out half of the country’s oil capacity, or more than 5 million barrels a day, and leaving the oil fields in flames.

The attack was nothing the Kingdom had seen before or expected: According to U.S. and Saudi intel, 18 drones and seven cruise missiles were launched and went undetected by both American and Saudi radar systems. The weaponry even went unnoticed by the U.S. military base nearby, the Prince Sultan Airbase, which is guarded by an American Patriot missile defense system and over 500 U.S. military personnel.

The drone attacks on two major Saudi Aramco plants at Abqaiq and Khurais were carried out on September 14. As a result of significant damage done to the facilities, the production of about 5.7 million barrels of crude oil per day, or about half of Saudi Arabia’s total daily output, was temporarily suspended.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has announced that Riyadh is considering all options, including military, after the probe into the attacks on Aramco oil facilities is completed.

"We want to mobilise international support, and we want to look at all options - diplomatic options, economic options and military options - and then make the decision," he said, speaking in New York on Tuesday at a conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly