Colombia’s new far-right regime
recognizes Israeli occupation
of Golan Heights
Monday, August 10, 9:43pm
(PressTV)
(PressTV)
Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella
Colombia’s newly installed far-right regime on Monday formally
recognized the Israeli regime’s so-called “sovereignty” over
the occupied Syrian Golan Heights --- a strategic Arab
territory seized by force in the 1967 aggression
and illegally annexed in 1981 in blatant
violation of international law and
countless UN resolutions.
In a shameful act of collusion with the Zionist entity’s decades-long
aggression & expansionism, the Colombian Foreign Ministry, under
the administration of President Abelardo de la Espriella, declared
that it “recognizes Israeli sovereignty over this territory, and the
right of that state to protect itself against external threats.”
The ministry further claimed that maintaining control of the
plateau is an “essential component” of the Israeli regime’s
national defense amid alleged regional instability.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar promptly thanked de la Espriella
and Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar, hailing the move as an
“historic decision” after recent meetings..... including one in
“historic decision” after recent meetings..... including one in
Barranquilla -- ahead of the new president’s inauguration.
This recognition - makes Colombia only the second country in the
world to endorse the Zionist regime’s illegal claim, following the
United States under Donald Trump in 2019. The overwhelming
majority of the international community, including the United
Nations, continues to regard the Golan Heights as occupied
Syrian territory and rejects any attempt to legitimize the
acquisition of land by force.
The diplomatic betrayal comes - as the Israeli regime has
aggressively expanded its military footprint... deep into
Syrian territory.... ever since the collapse of the Assad
government in December 2024. Tel Aviv unilaterally
declared the 1974 disengagement agreement void
...and advanced into UN-monitored buffer zones,
establishing new military bases and outposts,
despite Syria’s new administration affirming
its commitment to existing treaties and
international law.
De la Espriella, Colombia’s far-right leader - who received strong
backing from Trump during his campaign, has rapidly reversed
backing from Trump during his campaign, has rapidly reversed
the previous government’s progressive stance.
He recently ordered the ''suspension'' of a planned Colombian
embassy in Palestine, a key initiative, under former President
Gustavo Petro, while advancing plans to relocate Colombia’s
embassy to occupied Jerusalem and fully restore ties with
the Zionist entity.
This decision -- represents a profound setback for the Palestinian
cause and the broader struggle against occupation across West
Asia. By aligning with the Zionist regime’s expansionist agenda,
the new Colombian administration has chosen to side with the
oppressors rather than the oppressed, undermining the rights
of the Syrian and Palestinian peoples ------ and emboldening
urther aggression in the region.
The Golan Heights remains an integral part of Syrian territory under
illegal occupation. No amount of recognition by far-right regimes
can alter the reality that the Zionist entity’s presence there is
illegitimate and must end.
Since late 2024, following the fall of president Bashar al-Assad's
government during an Israeli-backed onslaught overwhelming
Syria, Israeli forces have advanced into a United Nations-
designated Area of Separation created in 1974 after a
UN-brokered ceasefire.
The 235-square-kilometre zone was originally intended as neutral
territory to prevent escalation, patrolled by UN peacekeepers.
Most countries still reject Tel Aviv’s annexation
of the broader Golan Heights, seized in 1967.
UN chief: Golan Heights belong to
Syria, Israeli violations must end
The UN chief says the Israeli-occupied
Golan Heights are Syrian territory and
the Tel Aviv regime’s violations ------
must stop.
_________________________________________
Israeli genocide in Gaza continuing
Israeli genocide in Gaza continuing
unabated ---- despite ceasefire:
UN experts
August 10, 7:01pm
(PressTV)
(PressTV)
UN experts say in a statement that the Israeli regime is continuing to
commit genocide in Gaza despite a ceasefire reached in October.
United Nations experts have warned that the Israeli genocide in
Gaza is continuing unabated despite a ceasefire reached in
October that was aimed at putting an end to the regime's
aggression against the Palestinian territory.
In a statement published in the media on Monday, UN experts said
that more than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since
the ceasefire took effect, including some 160 in July.
The experts warned that “nowhere in Gaza is safe” with Israeli
attacks that have killed Palestinians in densely populated
displacement areas, hospitals and shelters.
“The genocide is continuing unabated,” the statement said, as
it warned that Israel continues to restrict access to vital
humanitarian supplies in Gaza, including farmland,
clean water and agricultural supplies.
It said that a “sharp escalation” in attacks against Palestinians
has expanded to other areas of Israeli-occupied Palestine,
including in the occupied West Bank.
UN experts said that the number of Palestinians killed in the
occupied West Bank in July had reached 14, with many of
them killed in the last 10 days of that month.
They said that attacks in the occupied West Bank by Israeli
occupiers, whether illegal settlers or Israeli military forces,
were no longer “spontaneous”, adding that the occupiers
were operating under protection and were sometimes
assisted by the participation of the Israeli military.
The statement said that the number of such attacks had
increased to more than 20 in July, citing an incident in
Tell, southwest of Nablus, where armed occupiers
and soldiers shot and killed 4 Palestinian men
from one family.
It also pointed to “record settlement expansion, mass demolitions,
land seizures and the prolonged sealing of refugee camps –– all
sustained and encouraged by members of the Israeli cabinet”
–– in the occupied West Bank.
_________________________________
Israel to expand three settlements in
occupied East al-Quds with 3,400
settler units
August 10, 6:22pm
(PressTV)
Israeli regime authorities have advanced three major illegal
settlement projects in occupied East al-Quds totaling more
than 3,400 settler units. The plans have drawn strong
condemnation for further fragmenting Palestinian
neighbourhoods and tightening Israeli control
over the holy city.
Ir Amim, an Israeli organization that monitors settlement activity
in East al-Quds, reported on Monday that the projects were
advanced less than three months before the Knesset
elections scheduled for October 27.
According to the group, the al-Quds District Planning and Building
Committee last month deposited a plan for a new settlement of
about 650 housing units in the Palestinian neighbourhood of
Umm Tuba. The committee - also approved two additional
plans: one for about 450 settler units in the heart of the
Palestinian neighbourhood of Umm Lison, and another
to expand the Gilo settlement... by over 2,300 units.
All three sites are located in the southern part
of occupied East al-Quds.
Ir Amim warned that the combined projects, exceeding 3,400 settler
units, will deepen the fragmentation of Palestinian neighbourhoods,
reinforce Israeli control over the city - & undermine any prospects
for a future political settlement.
Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, said the moves should not be
seen as isolated planning decisions but as part of “an integrated
policy ........implemented according to a calculated timetable.”
“Within a few weeks, and ahead of the elections, the Israeli regime
is advancing three of the largest settlement projects in East al-
Quds,” Tatarsky stated. He described the steps as an attempt
to “create new facts on the ground,” reshape the city’s
demographic and geographic landscape, deepen its
separation from the occupied West Bank, and
make any future political settlement
significantly more difficult.
The current Israeli regime has been widely described as one of
the most aggressive supporters of settlement expansion in
the history of the occupied entity. In late June, Israeli
minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that the
authorities are accelerating settlement
construction..... claiming that 160
''settlement farms'' ..had been
established ....and over 100
new settlements approved.
Emboldened by the full support of US President Donald Trump,
Israel has intensified its illegal settlement activities in open
defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolution
2334, which declared settlements in the West Bank
and East al-Quds “a flagrant violation under
international law.”
The overwhelming majority of the international community, regards
Israeli settler units in the occupied territories as illegal. More than
700,000 Israeli settlers currently live in over 230 settlements built
since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds. All
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, and the UN
Security Council has repeatedly condemned Israel’s settlement
policies - in multiple resolutions.
Palestinians view these projects - as part of a deliberate and
accelerating Israeli policy aimed at expanding settlements,
seizing Palestinian land, and creating ''irreversible'' facts
on the ground.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory
opinion ordering Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian
territories “as rapidly as possible” and declaring the regime’s
presence unlawful.
In a related development --- on Monday, UN experts strongly
condemned the sharp increase in attacks on Palestinian
civilians ...across the besieged Gaza Strip in July,
describing it as “a sharp deterioration of an
already catastrophic human rights
situation” and stating that “the
genocide is continuing......
unabated.”
The experts denounced the advancing “Yellow Line” and the
systematic demolition of buildings as “re-engineering the
geography of illegally occupied Gaza -- through force
and displacement.”
_______________________________________________________
US defeat against Iran exposes Zionist grip
on Washington; popular struggle needed
to break it: Activist
August 10th, 11:54 am
by Press TV Website Staff
The United States’ shifting rhetoric on Iran is not a sign of strategic
flexibility but a symptom of a profound defeat that Washington
refuses to accept, says an Austrian writer and activist.
In an interview with the Press TV website, Vienna-based
anti-imperialist activist Wilhelm Langthaler said Zionist
neoconservatives have effectively captured the US
state apparatus and that only a “violent rupture”
or mass popular struggle can dislodge them.
Langthaler is a longtime political and human rights activist based in
Vienna, Austria. He has been vocal about Western interventionism,
Israel’s overriding role in US foreign policy, and the sovereign
rights of nations resisting Western imperialism.
He said Washington’s pattern of “threat, ultimatum, retreat, and
repeat” reveals a fundamental inability to impose its will on
the Islamic Republic of Iran ---- even in the aerial sphere,
where the US once claimed unchallenged supremacy.
“Basically, this is [an] expression of the defeat Washington suffered
against Iran, combined with the unwillingness to accept the
consequences,” Langthaler told the Press TV website.
“The US Empire, with its Israeli chain dog, is still set on keeping its
former position at all costs, according to the old Neocon concept,
which is not in line ....with the reality on the ground.”
He pointed to a series of US failures across the region, from Iraq and
Syria to Libya and Afghanistan, noting that “boots on the ground
proved to be very difficult, up to impossible.”
Langthaler dismissed the notion that President Donald Trump’s
contradictory messaging stems from strategic calculation,
instead attributing it to an unresolvable tension between
Trump’s anti-war campaign rhetoric and the Zionist-
controlled deep-state apparatus in Washington.
“Trump set out to end the endless US wars while promising the
continuation of the US Empire --- including white supremacy.
From the very beginning, this constituted an unresolvable
contradiction, if not a lie,” he asserted.
Asked about the influence of pro-Israel lobby groups
in the US, Langthaler was unequivocal.
“They do have a decisive influence not only on the Trump
administration but on the entire state apparatus. And it
is clear that it was them who pressed for the
aggression,” he stated.
However, the activist cautioned
against framing this as merely
“foreign” interference.
“It is intrinsic. Israel is de facto part of the US,
as Algeria was for France,” he stated.
Langthaler also addressed internal fractures within the so-called
MAGA movement, noting that significant sections are turning
against Israeli control over the US state. He cited the
electoral victory of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of
New York as evidence of the growing
institutional opposition.
“Zionists will do whatever [is] possible to defend their
entrenchments within the US regime. Without an
element of popular mass struggle or also civil
war, they cannot be driven out,” he warned.
On the path forward, Langthaler called for --- a global solidarity
movement modeled on the Vietnam-era anti-war campaigns,
with a specific focus on supporting Iran’s right to national
sovereignty and countering “anti-Islamic prejudice
instigated by our politico-mediatic elites.”
“Iranian steadfastness is the best thing Iran can do. Not only for
its own nation, but for the region and the world. Actually, there
is no other way to deal with Western imperialism,” he said.
He urged activists worldwide to pressure their governments to
stop supporting Zionism and US wars, and to back Iran’s
sovereignty --- under international law.
“We need to make this message pass, which will enormously help
to pressure our elites to distance themselves from Zionism - and
imperialist aggression at large,” he told the Press TV website.
_________________________________________________________________
Israeli cadet in flight training course
commits suicide at military base
August 10th, 9:26am
(PressTV)
A cadet in a flight training course has died by suicide at an Israeli Air
Force base in the southern part of the Israeli-occupied territories.
The Hebrew-language Haaretz daily newspaper reported that the
body of the Israeli Air Force pilot trainee was found at a military
base in the southern part of the Israeli-occupied territories...
on Sunday.
This comes as nearly 50 active-duty Israeli soldiers have taken their
own lives since the outbreak of the Gaza genocide in October 2023
amid reports that many troops are suffering from deep mental
distress after the horrors they witnessed in the besieged
coastal region.
On July 29, Haaretz reported that 17 Israeli soldiers committed
suicide this year, while 24 killed themselves in 2024, and 17
in 2023, including seven following the Gaza war.
The newspaper cited a significant lack of military mental health
professionals, such as psychiatrists, psychologists, and social
workers, as a contributing factor.
It highlighted systemic shortcomings in the military’s capacity to
assist discharged soldiers, reservists, and members of units
exposed to significant trauma – especially those engaged
in the identification of deceased soldiers.
According to the findings presented in the Haaretz report, the Israeli
army’s rehabilitation division admits hundreds of soldiers suffering
from psychological injuries each month, with a considerable
portion experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) due to their combat experiences in Gaza.
The Israeli military announced on July 27 that a reserve soldier was
found dead in his residence in the southern town of Ofakim, with
officials describing the incident as a suicide. The soldier had
been part of a unit tasked with identifying the remains
of deceased soldiers.
As per military reports, 898 Israeli soldiers have lost their lives
and 6,134 have sustained injuries since the onset of the
genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.
The military is facing growing criticism for deliberately
concealing the true extent of its casualties.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli military has launched a brutal
offensive in Gaza, killing more than 73,000 Palestinians and
injuring over 174,000 others. The relentless war and the
blockade have ravaged the region and caused
significant food shortages.