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Six white officers have agreed to sentences of between five and 30 years, recommended by Mississippi prosecutors.

Evans spun a cock and ball story about a stranger giving him an abortificant, taking care not to incriminate himself, obviously not realising that disposing of a corpse was a criminal offence.

Having been advised, the local police turned up at 10 Rillington Place and searched, in particular the drain where Evans claimed to have dumped Beryl’s body, but they were unable to open it. Eventually, the bodies of both Beryl and the baby were found in the outdoor wash-house. 

Evans was escorted back to London on a train by two detectives; the photograph of them disembarking gives the appearance of a frightened little man, but appearances can be deceptive. 

When Evans realised his original story wouldn’t wash, he changed it to implicate Christie, in particular he claimed Christie had agreed to perform an abortion on Beryl. Naturally, Christie denied this, and his wife backed him up when he claimed they had heard a bump in the night that woke them up shortly before Beryl disappeared.

With the tunnel vision a Democrat Congressman would be proud of, Ludovic Kennedy said the police simply took Christie at his word, specifically when they realised he had served as a reserve police officer during the Second World War. 

Along with the aforementioned briefcase, the police found a press cutting in the top floor apartment from the Setty case. Of this, Kennedy wrote “As Evans could neither read nor write, this cutting was almost certainly ‘planted’ in his flat by Christie some time during the past few days.”

Let us deal with these two objections. Firstly, as already pointed out, Evans wasn’t illiterate; he was a driver, for Heaven’s sake, and he was street smart. According to Kennedy and his followers, these experienced detectives and the uniformed officers working with them were precursors of Inspector Clouseau, tripping over bodies left, right and centre without a hint of what was really going on. The truth is very different as demonstrated in the aforementioned Setty case, to which we shall return shortly. These officers may not have had computers, CCTV or DNA, and they worked under far less salubrious conditions than today’s pampered plods, but they pulled off some spectacular successes. 

Rather than simply take Christie at his word, they separated him from his wife by luring him away to the police station to give a statement. He was there for six hours. In the meantime, Ethel Christie was questioned and their apartment searched. They found no evidence that Christie had been an abortionist, as Evans claimed, only a First Aid manual rather than an abortionist’s manual (if one even existed at that time). The only other thing they did find was a syringe Ethel said she used for women’s issues.

Regarding the Setty case, this is very important, and along with the coincidence of two unconnected murderers living under the same roof, was as big a coincidence as you could hope to find. Stanley Setty was a crooked car dealer who was murdered by his partner-in-crime Donald Hume. Hume was an extraordinary character. Along with one of Christie, the historian and popular author Jonathan Oates has published an exhaustive biography of him. 

Although Hume joined the RAF during the Second World War, he soon contracted meningitis which led to him being invalided out, but during that short time he learned to fly. He probably stabbed Setty to death in an argument over a triviality rather than money then dumped his headless torso in the sea from a light aircraft, but it was washed up in the marshes later that month.

Although Setty’s disappearance was reported promptly, when the headless corpse was recovered, the police hadn’t a clue who was the victim, until one of them came up with a brilliant idea. The hands of the torso were amputated and the waterlogged skin came off like a glove. They were thus able to take the fingerprints and determine they belonged to Setty who had a conviction for fraud. Hume was already a suspect in Setty’s disappearance and was promptly arrested. 

When Evans was remanded to the hospital wing of Brixton Prison, he met Hume, and if the latter is to be believed, had followed his case. When Setty’s body was found, it was believed initially it had been dumped from a vehicle. The prosecution’s theory was that Evans had intended to dump Beryl’s body in the sea, and probably would have if he hadn’t been sacked from his driving job.

Although he beat the murder rap, Hume was sentenced to 12 years for disposing of Setty’s body. On his release he confessed to the murder, selling his story then fled abroad, but before that he sold another story to the Daily Express. On February 7, 1958, the paper’s Chief Crime Reporter Percy Hoskins said that at Christie’s trial, the Crown accepted the million-to-one theory that two stranglers lived in the same house at the same time. Hume and Evans were together for twelve day. Hume claimed he told him “Don’t stick your head in a noose” adding pick one story and stick to it: “Blame everyone but yourself”.

Evans told Hume that Christie had killed his wife, and Geraldine while he was present: “It was because the kid kept on crying”. Christie strangled the baby with a bit of rag.

Hume said he didn’t believe Evans and neither did anyone else but concluded “I am convinced that he and Christie together arranged to murder the child. IN THIS EVANS WAS GUILTY”.

It remains to be seen if Hume was spinning a tall tale, but he had already told a pack of lies to cheat the hangman. Talking of hangmen, in March 1956, Albert Pierrepoint, who hanged both men, told the EMPIRE NEWS AND Sunday Chronicle he believed Evans to be guilty.

When the police confronted Evans with the evidence, he broke down and confessed. After confessing, he said he felt relieved. On the journey to court, Evans told one detective: “There is something I meant to tell you…After I killed my wife I took her wedding ring from her finger and sold it to Samuels at Merthyr for 6/-”.

This was another significant admission because he didn’t realise the ring had already been recovered by the police. For such an innocent man, Evans confessed to so many crimes.

He didn’t formally retract his confession to the murders until December 15, three weeks after his arrest. By then, the enormity of his predicament had finally sunk in.

Evans stood trial the trial from January 11-3, 1950, his appeal was dismissed February 20, and he was hanged March 9. There things would have ended but for Christie’s mad murder spree.

When he took the stand as the only defence witness, Evans was asked: “Is it true that on five different occasions at different places and to different persons you have confessed to the murder of your wife, and to the murder of your wife and child?”

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He admitted he had. Now though, there were serious attempts to undermine his warranted conviction. Realising a further inquiry was necessary, the authorities appointed J. Scott-Henderson QC to investigate. He did so and reported back in record time. The inquiry was held in private because Christie was under sentence of death. Christie did indeed confess to the murder of Beryl Evans but added the rider “The more the merrier”. This was a half-hearted attempt to set up an insanity defence, but Christie did not appeal his conviction, and was hanged at Pentonville Prison on July 15, 1953.

After Christie’s death, investigations continued, in particular it was believed he was responsible for the rape and murder of seven year old Christine Butcher at Windsor in July 1951.  On August 19, the same year, a photograph was published of a crowd outside the Windsor hotel where the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson was staying. (Robinson fought Randolph Turpin at Earls Court on July 10 losing on points but winning the rematch on a stoppage in New York two months later). A man in the crowd was thought to be Christie, but he was subsequently identified as George Mason Black and eliminated from the inquiry. That particular murder remains unsolved.

Predictably, not everyone was happy with Scott-Henderson’s findings, especially the Timothy Evans Committee. Eddowes and Kennedy in particular kept hammering away and eventually a full public inquiry was held. Like the Scott-Henderson Inquiry, the Brabin Inquiry resulted in an official publication (Cmnd. 3101) which was published in October 1966. (Scott Henderson actually published two reports, the second answering criticisms of the first). Brabin was thorough beyond all meaning of the word, taking witness statements from 169 people and oral evidence from 79.

After a preliminary hearing, the Brabin Inquiry sat for 32 days between November 22, 1965 and January 21, 1966.

Apparently insignificant facts here and there make the case against Evans even more damning, for example his mother bought the couple a new perambulator, which indicates she knew nothing about any proposed abortion. 

Evans claimed there had been blood on the top of his wife’s legs – indicating an abortion, but Beryl was pregnant when she died, and there was no credible evidence she had subjected herself to any such procedure. Furthermore, she had been beaten up prior to death, something that was not part of Christie’s modus operandi. 

Kennedy said the way Evans and Beryl lived was typical of people under such conditions, sug­gesting Beryl gave as good as she got, which was clearly not the case. Evans also had a brief affair more or less openly with a teenager named Lucy Endicott.

One of the most pathetic attempts to exculpate Evans was to claim his confession had been concocted by the police. Kennedy and his gang even went so far as to submit it to a linguistic analysis suggesting that Evans would not have used such words. This was made by Jan Svartvik, a Swedish academic.

Nowadays all such confessions are taped or even videoed, so that question does not arise, but traditionally, confessions and other witness statements are written by police officers for entirely non-sinister reasons. For one thing, they need to contain certain information, and at times there is certain information that must not be included. In legal proceedings, witness statements are often redacted because they include hearsay, information that is considered unduly prejudicial, or for other reasons . 

When Evans made his final confession he spoke freely and quickly. It is not surprising that it was not taken down verbatim and that the police used different phrasing in places. At any rate, he never claimed his confession had been fabricated, and considering the way the police sometimes treat suspects in far less serious cases, he had nothing to complain about.

After hearing all this voluminous evidence, Brabin came to a strange conclusion, namely that Evans had probably murdered his wife but not the baby. For that reason he was given a posthumous pardon. As will be seen shortly, Brabin’s conclusion was not as unlikely as it may sound to the uninitiated.

Government bureaucrats were no more impressed with the Timothy Evans Committee than the police. In a letter dated December 21, 1965 to F.N. Charlton, Maurice Crump of the Treasury Solicitor’s Office reported a conversation he’d had with Ludovic Kennedy: “I regret to have to record that I found Mr. Kennedy interested in things which could somehow or another be construed as consistent with Evans’s innocence to the exclusion of anything tending to prove his guilt.”

Even the Brabin Inquiry did not satisfy the Kennedy gang, they kept pursuing the matter, and in November 2004, the Court Of Appeal simply pronounced Evans innocent after declining to hear the case yet again on the grounds of costs.

This alleged miscarriage of justice is one of several cases used by the anti-hanging lobby which was led by Sydney Silverman, a Labour MP who died in 1968. The other cases include Ruth Ellis, Derek Bentley, and James Hanratty. 

Ellis was the last woman hanged in Britain. She murdered her lover David Blakely, shooting him several times. There was no question about that, but because she was a superficially attractive blonde, there was a huge campaign to reprieve her. Derek Bentley was a retard but the idea that only intelligent killers should suffer the ultimate punishment is ludicrous. The manufactured controversy over this case stems from the fact that his partner-in-crime pulled the trigger and killed PC Miles, but because he was only 16, Christopher Craig did not hang. 

The suggestion that James Hanratty was innocent is too silly for words, but an enormous disinformation campaign was mounted by people with bad intentions. One of the many people who were duped was John Lennon, who even financed a film about the case. Anyone who still has any doubts about Hanratty’s guilt should read the transcript of his 68 page posthumous appeal.

Returning to Evans and Christie, apart from a book on the forensics by the pathologist Francis Camps, the first full length work on the case was published by Michael Eddowes in 1955; it was called The Man On Your Conscience…Eddowes had originally collaborated with Rupert Furneaux, but Furneaux came to a different conclusion and published his book The Two Stranglers Of Rillington Place in 1961, the same year as Kennedy’s book. However, in 1995 a sensational book that flew largely under the radar was published. This was The Two Killers Of Rillington Place by John Eddowes, the son of Michael Eddowes who had died two years previously.

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The younger Eddowes had some strong words for his father. He claimed he was “mentally ill, a fantasist and liar.” 

In addition to his book about Evans, he wrote two books in which he claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald was a double who had been sent by the Soviets to kill Kennedy. Obviously someone was listening because Oswald’s body was exhumed in 1981 when dental records confirmed the obvious. John Eddowes said his father was responsible for almost all the theories and views that Evans was innocent, which is an exaggeration because any reasonable person who has not examined the evidence in depth might come to that conclusion. 

In his book, John points out that Beryl Evans left 10 Rillington Place on the morning of the day Christie was supposed to have strangled her. The builder remembered warning her about the position of the ladder. This is quite important, there were builders working on the house at the time, and it would have been extremely risky for Christie to have murdered Beryl and the baby then dumped their bodies in the wash-house where there was a high risk of them being found. If on the other hand Evans murdered his wife on the spur of the moment, that would make sense, but John Eddowes goes much further. He says Evans planned the murder of his wife and baby; he fell behind with his deliveries because he was recognoitering the Brighton area with a view to dumping Beryl’s body there (as it was believed Setty’s body had been dumped).

After he was sacked though, he came up with a different plan, to frame Christie, “and he might have had more luck than he could possibly have dreamt of, if the two bodies in the garden had been disco­vered.”

Regarding the coincidence of two murderers living under the same roof and operating independently with each nescient of the other, in his autobiography, the pathologist Keith Simpson wrote “Coincidences are far more common in life than in fiction” and in this case three of of Christie’s victims – whom he’d met in London – had been treated for venereal disease at the same hospital in Southampton. F. Tennyson Jesse made the same observation in her earlier work TRIALS OF EVANS AND CHRISTIE.

One final observation on coincidences, the serial killer Robin Gecht had once worked for an even more infamous serial killer: John Gacy. If one allows for the coincidence of two murderers living under the same roof, operating independently, and one trying to save his skin by pointing the finger at the other, there is really not much more to say for the innocence of Timothy Evans.

Back To Part 3.

Last month was the seventieth anniversary of the execution of the serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie. This sensational case is a long time favourite of true crime buffs, ghouls, the curious, and those concerned with miscarriages of justice, but it received hardly any attention this year.

Gallons of mendacious ink and countless hours of pundit time have been expended on Christie, not because of the crimes he did commit, but because of two he did not. In 1950, Christie’s neighbour was hanged for the murder of his baby daughter. Timothy Evans strangled both her and his wife Beryl, sold the furniture in their top floor apartment (which was not his to sell) then took off to his native Wales where eventually he gave the police a cock and bull story about how Beryl had died. Concerned about the welfare of the baby, the police launched an intensive investigation, eventually finding Beryl and Geraldine’s bodies. Confronted with the evidence, Evans confessed. At his trial he pleaded not guilty; he was tried only for the murder of Geraldine because there could be no defence of provocation. He was convicted, his appeal was denied, and he was duly hanged.

That would have been the end of the matter, but two years later Christie lost the plot, sub-let his apartment (illegally) and walked off with just a suitcase. Shortly, the bodies of three women were found in the kitchen alcove and the body of his wife under the floorboards.

Christie was arrested walking around London like a lost soul and had clearly given up on life. The police conducted an extremely thorough search of the house and grounds of 10 Rillington Place finding the remains of two more women in the back garden. Christie had murdered them during the Second World War, one when he was working as a special constable.

The obvious (but erroneous) conclusion is that Christie murdered Beryl Evans and her baby, so Tim Evans must have been innocent. This has been the playbook of all but a few brave scholars who have researched this case, so let us take a look at what really happened, including the truth about Timothy Evans.

Christie was born in 1899 (not 1898 as stated on his criminal record) and served as a boy soldier in the First World War where he was injured by mustard gas. He married Ethel Simpson in his native Yorkshire on May 10, 1920. After four years, he and Ethel separated, and Christie entered a downward spiral of albeit petty crime. His last conviction was in November 1933; although he had been living in London and Ethel in Sheffield, they must have kept in touch because on his release from prison they reconciled and in 1937 they moved into 10 Rillington Place. Ethel was not a particularly attractive woman, so it may be she thought living with her estranged husband was better than ending up an old maid.

Evans was born at Merthyr Tydfil on November 20, 1924. One of the biggest myths about Evans is that he was a simpleton. When he was a young boy, he developed a serious foot infection that led to him taking a lot of time out from school. Some have claimed he was functionally illiterate; this was not the case. Evans read the Daily Mirror, which at that time was a serious newspaper. He was also employed as a driver which took him a fair distance outside London. In 1933, his widowed mother remarried, and shortly moved to London. Evans moved in with her in 1946, married teenager Beryl Thorley the following year, and in 1948 the couple moved into the top flat at 10 Rillington Place.

Evans treated his young wife abominably, and on one occasion was seen nearly to defenestrate the poor girl. Apologists for Evans have tried to excuse his behaviour or even to blame Beryl, but the simple fact is that he was a wife-beater with a liking for drink. 

The accepted narrative is that when Beryl became pregnant for the second time, she couldn’t cope, and Christie was asked or offered to perform an abortion on her. It is widely believed Christie was a backstreet abortionist, but this appears to be speculation and embellishment after the event. He was said to have used this pretext to render Beryl unconscious with gas then strangle her, raping her either as she died or after death. When Evans returned home, Christie is supposed to have told him the operation had gone wrong and that there would be serious consequences for both of them if the news got out. He advised Evans to leave town, said he would arrange for baby Geraldine to be fostered or adopted by a couple he knew, and that was basically it. Evans was so stupid he didn’t see the strangler’s mark on his dead wife’s neck, and was so in awe of Christie that he did as instructed.

The myth of innocent Tim Evans was crafted primarily by two men: Michael Eddowes and Ludovic Kennedy. Together with Herbert Wolfe they set up the Timothy Evans Committee. Wolfe was a refugee from Nazi Germany; he came to Britain in 1933 and did well for himself, in spite of equating British justice with Nazi justice. Although he was 16 years younger than Eddowes, Kennedy was the senior partner and the loudest voice, probably because while Eddowes was a lawyer, he was a journalist. Kennedy wrote what is generally considered the definitive book on Evans and Christie; in 1971; 10 Rillington Place was made into a film in which Christie was portrayed as the Welshman’s landlord.

So what really happened to Beryl Evans and her baby? Because both men were inveterate liars we can never be absolutely certain, but it is most likely that Evans strangled Beryl during an argument and baby Geraldine because she wouldn’t stop crying; he would eventually claim as much. There is however one part of the story that is puzzling, but one no one seems to notice. Before fleeing London, Evans sold his furniture, which he was buying on hire purchase. It was valued around £100 and he sold it to a dealer named Hookway for £40. At the Evans murder trial, Christie said Evans told him he had got £60 for it. Anyone who knows anything about the retail trade and especially the secondhand retail trade will tell you how unlikely that sort of purchase was or is. 

Another possibility is that Evans sold Hookway more than his furniture or that he obtained money from another source. He was a petty thief; when the police searched his apartment for the investigation they found a stolen briefcase.

So what happened? Evans murdered his wife and baby daughter, stole his wife’s wedding ring, sold his furniture, bought an expensive overcoat, then caught a train to Wales where he ponced off his family until his money ran out. While there he told a pack of lies about Beryl, but when his mother wrote to her sister (his aunt) and told her he had sold his furniture, the game was up. (One can imagine how differently something like this would play out today or even in the 1970s when telephones were more or less universal in working class homes).

Evans then went to the police station and told a police officer (also named Evans – there’s a lot of them in Wales!) he had “disposed” of his wife. At first, the officer thought he was drunk, but when it became clear there was a baby involved, the police had to act.

To Part 2.

RT did a rather interesting bit of reporting on Saturday 12 August, when its website ran an interview with a Russian conscripted soldier who was called to serve in the mobilization that took place in the fall of 2022. I am presenting the entire text of the interview for the reader to think about. There are a few things that might be useful observations:

The tone seems very balanced. The soldier appears to call it straight when he talks about his own attitudes about the war and military service and about that which he has seen in others around him.
Based on what I see myself in Russia, it appears that he is giving a fair assessment of the attitudes of many people in Russia towards the war. Certainly not all of them but the vast majority. It seems that it is very important for Western readers to think carefully about what he is saying.
Based on a further work I am editing from a very successful person in Russia, yet not an oligarch by any means, Russia has a great deal of balance in its attitudes towards people and nations elsewhere. Given the propensity of Ukrainian PR leaders to call Russians “subhuman” (a strong recall of the term untermenschen) and to call for killing more and more Russians wherever they are, the views of our soldier here are perhaps the best example to date that Russia is taking the right road in what she is doing.

But those are my opinions. Maybe you, the reader, will form different ones. That is why I offer this piece – to read, to think about and come up with your own ideas, whether or not they agree with mine is unimportant. Be a critical thinker! Have fun!

(The images shown are also lifted from the RT piece directly. Not all of the original imagery is here, but all the text is.)

Very important: This piece was developed and written by Dmitry Plotnikov, a political journalist exploring the history and current events of ex-Soviet states. We want to give due credit to Dmitry for his work; this is a very important piece.

‘At the front, you start looking at things differently’: An interview with a Russian conscript fighting Ukraine

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator

The Obama administration began the US military occupation of Syria in November 2015. Obama sold the public on the idea of fighting ISIS, but in reality military personnel of Syria, Russia, Iraq and Iran were already on the group and ultimately defeated ISIS in Syria.

The real reason behind the US invasion and occupation of Syria, now lasting eight years, and with no end in sight, was to prevent the Syrian government, and its citizens, from benefiting from the oil wells in the north east.

Those oil wells had supplied the domestic consumption of gasoline, diesel home heating fuel, diesel truck fuel, and the production of electricity.

Since then, Syrians have had a chronic shortage of gasoline, diesel and have almost no electricity for homes, offices, businesses, schools and hospitals The national grid is dependent on converting petroleum into electricity at the various power stations. Syrians are living with just two to three hours of electricity per 24 hours, in three increments.

Due to US sanctions, Syria can’t buy energy products easily. The sanctions and occupation are designed to keep the Syrian people deprived of even the most basic daily needs.

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse.com interviewed Glenn Diesen, Professor, of the University of South-Eastern Norway.

#1. Steven Sahiounie (SS):   Recently, the US military sent reinforcement to east of Syria where they are illegal occupying the largest oil wells in Syria. In your opinion, what is the US planning there?

Glenn Diesen (GD):  We have seen growing military pressure against the US in Syria to compel the Americans to end their occupation of Syria. The US will strengthen its position to withstand these efforts. Besides plundering Syria, the US must also ensure that the region recognizes the US as the dominant force in the region. Once states in the region no longer believe that the US will have the final say, then they will start to become more self-reliant by seeking alternative security arrangements, or pursuing peace agreements. The political power of the US derives to a large extent from its ability to demonstrate its military dominance.

#2. SS:  In both Ukraine and Syria, Russia and the US are in a military conflict. Recently, the US was complaining about Russian airplanes operating in Syria, where they are targeting the Radical Islamic terrorists such as ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra. In your opinion, will this result in open conflict, and where?

GD:  Russia is increasing pressure on the American troops to push them out of Syria. This can also be considered to be horizontal escalation to the conflict in Ukraine where the Americans are in a position to kill Russian soldiers, but the Russians do not have any possibility to impose direct costs on the Americans. Neither the Russians nor the Americans want this to escalate into a direct hot war between the two nuclear powers; however, they are both prepared to risk such a war by increasing pressure on the other side. However, the US still prefers to fight Russia through proxies such as Islamic terrorist groups in Syria. 

#3. SS:  China brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which took America by surprise. In your view, how do you see the American reaction to this new relationship? 

GD:  The political influence of the US in the region largely derives from its role as a security provider, and therefore has an interest in perpetuating the conflicts. US hegemony therefore depends on dividing regions of the world into dependent and obedient allies on one side, and weakened adversaries on the other. The US openly expressed its dissatisfaction with the Chinese-brokered deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran as they want the military pressure on Iran to endure and they want to maintain their influence over Saudi Arabia. The US is also very apprehensive about the strength of China, that is displacing US power across the world. 

#4. SS:  US president Joe Biden has a very strained relationship with Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has decided to act decisively on the world stage. In your opinion, will America allow Saudi Arabia to fall from their grasp?

GD:  Saudi Arabia is seeking an ideal position in the nascent multipolar world, which is to establish good relations with all the great powers. By diversifying its partnerships, Saudi Arabia can avoid excessive dependence on any one state and thus enjoy greater political autonomy. The US will predictably attempt to restore its control over Saudi Arabia, and therefore push for Saudi Arabia to sever its ties with other great powers such as China and Russia. This can only be achieved by stoking tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran as this will increase Saudi security dependence on the US and it must therefore follow US orders. The US always aims to convert security dependence into economic and political loyalties, thus US power is conditioned on conflict.    

#5. SS:   The US-Turkish relationship has been strained for years while the US supports the Kurds, who Turkey considers terrorists. In your view, now that President Erdogan has been re-elected, and has such a big role to play in Ukraine, will the US re-evaluate their support of the Kurds? 

GD:  The US has more than once used the Kurds as a proxy against regional adversaries, and then abandoned the Kurds once they have served their purpose for the Americans. It is still unclear what path the Americans will take, but they obviously face a dilemma between continuing to use the Kurds to advance US objectives in Syria or improving US relations with Turkey. 

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist

This article is originally published at MidEastDiscourse

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator

Israeli airstrikes on Syria have become routine and deadly. On Monday, Israeli airstrikes on Damascus at 2:20 am local time killed four Syrian soldiers and wounded four others. 

Damascus residents were awoken from sleep to sounds and flashes of bright lights from the attacks.  Regardless of the numerous attacks, the civilian populations are held hostage to the Israeli military and their relentless attacks which cause emotional distress on innocent people sleeping in their own homes, while trying to survive in a collapsed economy which has pushed the majority to the poverty line.

The US has strangled the Syrian civilians with years of sanctions which have prevented pharmacies and hospitals from ordering special medicines from US and European manufacturers. For example, in a case last month, a woman in Syria had a case of ocular herpes (herpes virus attack in the eye) and the required injections of a medicine made in France were unavailable due to US and EU sanctions. 

While the US sanctions deprive Syrian civilians from medicines, the US military is occupying the northeast of Syria and has confiscated the oil produced at the largest production wells.  This has translated into chronic gasoline shortages and long lines at the gas pumps, sometimes for days.

The US supports the Kurdish militia, SDF and YPG, which are considered by Turkey to be linked to the outlawed terrorists group PKK, responsible for 30,000 deaths in Turkey over decades.  Although the US government is anti-communist, the Kurdish administration in northeast Syria is run under strict communist political ideology and supported by the White House and US Congress.

The Syrian government condemned the Monday attack and requested the UN Security Council to take action to prevent further Israeli attacks on Syria.

This latest attack on Damascus, the oldest capital in the world, targeted areas near Damascus International  Airport, Dimas Airport and Kisweh causing deaths, injuries and property damage.

The attack was launched from the Golan Heights, which is Syrian land according to international agreements, but is occupied by Israel since 1967. The local population is living under a brutal and long lasting military occupation. During the Trump regime, the US recognized the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, contrary to UN resolutions.

Syrian air defenses intercepted the Israeli missiles and shot down some of them according to a Syrian military source reporting to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

Israeli forces attacked seven targets in Damascus in July.  They were said to include warehouses used by the Lebanese Resistance group and other allies of the Syrian military.

Israel has attacked Syria hundreds of times over the years, and all have been unprovoked attacks on a sovereign state.  In every case but one, Syria has never retaliated and attacked Israel. In fact, Syria has been fighting terrorists who could have threatened the security of Israel, and Syria has kept their borders with Israel secure. However, in the armed conflict which began in Syria in 2011, which was a failed US-NATO plan for regime change, armed Radical Islamic terrorists with Jibhat al Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate, crossed into Israel from the Golan Heights to receive medical treatment in the Israeli public hospitals, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally made bedside visits to injured terrorists.

By 2015, terrorists had occupied large swaths of land across Syria. Iran, Russia and the Lebanese Resistance group all were called upon to participate in the liberation of Syria, as well as the fight against terrorists, including the ISIS.

President Trump would have you believe his administration defeated ISIS across Iraq and Syria, but in reality it was a large international effort by  Iraq, Iran, Russia and Syria which defeated the group.

 On July 19, Israeli air strikes near Damascus killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded four others.

On June 14, Israel carried out air strikes near Damascus wounding a soldier.

In late May, Israeli air strikes hit Damascus wounding five.

Previous Israeli strikes have put both Damascus and Aleppo airports out of service. Both airports are vital international lifelines for humanitarian aid after the February 6 earthquake registering 7.8 and called the earthquake of the century. Those airports are also commercial passenger terminals for Syrians leaving and returning, as well as international aid group delegates and international diplomatic delegations.  Experts have expressed shock and concern that Israel could have shot down a fully loaded commercial passenger plan in their air strikes.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist

This article is originally published at MidEastDiscourse

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator

Fierce and deadly clashes between rival factions in Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon have killed two children and 10 others, while at least 56 have been wounded according to sources at Al Hamshari Hospital. 

The extremist groups Jund al Sham and Shabab al Muslim have been facing off against Fatah fighters in the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, near the city of Sidon, close to the Israeli border.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has reported that more than 2,000 people were forced to flee in search of safety since the beginning of the clashes.

The camp was formed in 1948 to shelter Palestinian refugees fleeing the formation of Israel, where they had been forced from their homes, lands and businesses in a program of ethnic cleansing, which is ongoing in the Jewish State of Israel.

The fighting broke out Saturday night, and into Sunday morning, while a cease-fire was reached late Monday, but broke down as new clashes erupted on Tuesday.

The violence began when an unknown gunman attempted to assassinate Mahmoud Khalil, but killed his companion instead.  In retaliation, militants assassinated Abu Ashraf al Armoushi, a Palestinian military general from the Fatah group and three escorts.

Israeli Defense Forces Chief of staff Herzi Halevi and President Isaac Herzog made separate trips Wednesday to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon amid heightened tensions. 

Ousama Saad, Member of the Lebanese Parliament, blamed Israel for the violence. Saad said, “The Zionist enemy is escalating against Lebanon and Palestine, and we must not help it by fomenting sedition inside Palestinian camps, which is in the Israeli interest.” 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a huge domestic political crisis which threatens civil war after a judicial reform bill passed in the most religious extremist government in Israeli history. Netanyahu often has resorted in the past to creating violence among Palestinian groups in an effort to unite his domestic Jewish citizens. However, this time it might backfire on him, as many Israeli military personnel have pledged to not report for duty as a personal form of protest to the law which many say has taken away democracy from Israel. 

Palestinian resistance groups in the Occupied West Bank have been carrying out operations to resist the occupation of their land, and the lack of human rights and dignity at the hands of the brutal Israeli military.

On Sunday, factions blazed away with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers and lobbed hand grenades in the refugee camp as ambulances zoomed through its narrow streets to take the wounded to the hospital.

Lebanese reaction

Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Ashraf Dabbour met with the commander of the Lebanese army, Gen. Joseph Aoun, on Wednesday to discuss developments in the camps and attempts to secure a new cease-fire.

Some sniper bullets and shells crossed the outskirts of the camp into the nearby neighborhoods in Sidon city, and a “B7” shell exploded near a point where several photographers and media staff were stationed, but no injuries were recorded.

Many Lebanese soldiers were deployed in the area, and Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi stressed that “the army is carrying out all its duties in this region, as in others, despite all the difficult circumstances.”

The Lebanese army said in a statement that a mortar shell hit a military barracks outside the camp and wounded one soldier, whose condition is stable.

Some residents in Sidon neighborhoods near the camp fled their homes as stray bullets hit buildings and shattered windows and storefronts.

UNRWA said two of its schools that serve some 2,000 students were damaged in the fighting, and it had suspended all its operations in the camp.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the clashes. “We call on the Palestinian leadership to cooperate with the army to control the security situation and hand over those meddling with security to the Lebanese authorities,” Mikati said in his statement.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist

This article is originally published at Mideast Discourse

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