Netanyahu Gets Standing Ovation Promoting War with Iran while Yemen Leader Announces Beginning of 5th Phase in War with More Attacks on Tel Aviv
Left: Israeli leader Benjamin Yetanyahu before the U.S. Congress, Right: Mr. Abdul Malik al-Houthi
by Brian Shilhavy Editor, Health Impact News
Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress this week just days after Israel’s capital city of Tel Aviv was bombed by Yemen’s Houthis.
And yet it wasn’t the Yemen Houthis he condemned, but their favorite “enemy,” Iran.
I’m standing here in Washington, D.C. and the difference is so stark. America’s founding document promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Iran’s founding document pledges death, tyranny, and the pursuit of jihad. And as states are collapsing across the Middle East, Iran is charging into the void to do just that. (Transcript here.)
This rhetoric against Iran has been going on since the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan was caught in a scandal sending Iran militants to overthrow Nicaragua, all funded by the U.S.
There was a copy of an Israeli newspaper from 1984 that was reporting almost exactly the same thing 40 years ago that Netanyahu, and his Zionist friends, are saying today, that was going viral on social media:
The obviously staged Trump shooting is now being blamed on Iran as well, with Donald Trump saying that he “hopes America obliterates Iran” if he is assassinated, just as many other Christian Evangelical leaders have also called for the destruction of Iran.
This attitude completely ignores the fact that millions of Jews and Christians also live in Iran, along with millions of others who do not support war or many of the policies of their Islamic leader. See:
Netanyahu and Israeli Zionists continue to state that the IDF is the most “moral” army in the world, and does not target innocent civilians.
But doctors currently on the ground in Gaza say otherwise.
US Doctors Stunned By Number Of Gaza Children With Headshot Wounds
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Israel the “most moral army in the world,” but a high volume of deeply troubling wounds seen by American surgeons volunteering in Gaza is casting doubt on that claim.
Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an American surgeon with heavy catastrophe-zone experience, is among those stunned by the civilian devastation they’ve recently witnessed in Gaza, and especially by a high volume of what appear to be precision rifle-fire wounds on children — including toddlers.
Perlmutter (second from left) with the volunteer medical team that spent few weeks in Gaza (Photo: Dr. Feroze Sidhwa via Politico)
“All of the disasters I’ve seen, combined – 40 mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined – doesn’t equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza,” Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon and vice president of the International College of Surgeons, told CBS’s Sunday Morning.
What most struck him was his observation that the overwhelming majority of the patients he and his team treated were children:
“I’ve never seen that before. I’ve seen more incinerated children than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, combined. I’ve seen more shredded children in just the first week … missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority.”
Perlumutter, a Jew who grew up in New Jersey and who now lives in North Carolina, was also disturbed what what he attributed to precise rifle fire directed at children, some of whom were “shot twice.”
“I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn’t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the ‘world’s best sniper.’ And they’re dead-center shots.“
His description of the phenomenon was confirmed to CBS News by more than 20 other doctors who’d recently visited Gaza. An American doctor had such a problem grasping what he was seeing that he double-checked using CT scans, saying he “didn’t believe that this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head.”
An American doctor treated this 10-year-old who’d been shot in the head and received a craniectomy a month earlier (Dr. Feroze Sidhwa via Politico)
A Virginia anesthesiologist said he saw an estimated 30 single gunshot wounds to children in just two weeks. A doctor based in gunfire-heavy Chicago described the horrific conclusion he reached as the pattern emerged on the treatment tables in front of him:
“I thought these kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time, like sadly, some of the kids we treat in Chicago. But after the third or fourth time, I realized it was intentional; bullets were being put in these kids on purpose.” (Source.)
Surgeon, Dr. Mark Perlmutter, on what he witnessed in his first month in Gaza. On @CBSSunday
— Samira Mohyeddin سمیرا (@SMohyeddin) July 22, 2024
Netanyahu, who is more popular in the U.S. than he is in Israel, most certainly does have a problem, however, and it is no wonder why he is begging for military aid from the U.S.
But his current most urgent problem is not Iran, but instead Yemen, who has now successfully shut down the shipping lanes in the Red Sea, and even launched a new kind of drone that penetrated U.S. air defenses and blew up a building in downtown Tel Aviv. See:
Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, has vowed that more strikes are coming against Tel Aviv, and that they have now launched the “fifth phase” of their military action against Israel.
Ansar Allah chief vows more strikes on Tel Aviv coming
The leader of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, Mr. Abdul Malik al-Houthi, announced that the Yemeni support front has launched the fifth phase of escalation through the “Yafa to Occupied Yafa” operation, in which the Yemeni armed forces targeted Tel Aviv with a Yafa drone last week.
In a speech delivered on Thursday, Sayyed al-Houthi confirmed that the Israeli occupation “was astonished by the operation and shocked due to the importance of the target that was hit and the long distance the Yemeni-made drone traveled.”
He stated that the distance crossed by Yafa exceeded 2,200 km and that it managed to “penetrate all the barriers and defense that the occupation relies on, provided by” countries protecting it.
The Ansar Allah chief emphasized that targeting Tel Aviv, which includes the occupation’s most vital facilities, represents “a critical point” that pains the occupation and strikes its “arrogance, and presumption,” asserting that hitting it means “there is no safe place left for Israelis in occupied Palestine.”
The drone operation “terrified the Israeli occupiers” residing in the area of the strike, Sayyed al-Houthi said.
Regarding Israeli leadership, officials expressed “shock” after the operation, with some even saying openly that “Israel had lost its security and that red lines had been crossed,” he continued, adding that an Israeli media outlet warned that the Yafa strike exposed “a serious operational flaw and complete blindness, despite readiness on all fronts”.
He added that the “occupation perceived the operation as signaling a new phase in the war, evolving into a multi-front regional conflict. It also introduced a new aerial threat that challenges the capabilities of the Israeli Air Force and the entire military, penetrating through the enemy’s technologies and defenses.” (Full article.)
What Were the First 4 Phases of the Yemen War so Far?
2 million people in Yemen took to the streets after Tel Aviv was bombed. (Source.)
Sam Parker, of Behind the News Network, just published a 2-part series on the Yemen war, which now also involves Iraq and Syria (but NOT Iran yet), and he reported how the first 4 phases have gone so far.
I am going to quote at length from his article, as you are not likely to read this from Western news sources.
He reported on the first 4 phases:
Imposing a maritime blockade of Israel
The 1st Phase was hitting Israel itself, mainly the port of Eilat.
The 2nd phase was hitting ships linked to, or delivering goods to Israel.
The 3rd phase was hitting ships in the Indian Ocean, and which are going around Cape Town.
The 4th phase was hitting ships in the eastern Mediterranean on the way to Israeli ports.
This marked Yemen’s first phase of a meticulously planned series of naval operations. The second phase saw a broader prohibition, blocking ships from any country from approaching Israeli ports – a waterway siege, just as Yemen has endured for eight long years.
Sanaa’s scope of operations then broadened in the third phase to include the targeting Israeli vessels navigating the much longer Cape of Good Hope route – around the African continent – to deliver goods to the occupation state.
With regard to the economic toll on Israel from the Houthis’ repeated attacks on the international shipping lines, the leader said that the “prices of food and medicine in Israel have been increasing due to our attacks on the ships.”
The 4th Phase Begins
But as Israel’s threats to invade and bombard Rafah intensified in late April, Sanaa announced the start of a fourth phase of escalation, a significant ramp-up in their military response.
The Yemeni armed forces announced on 3 May the start of the “of escalation against Israel and in support of Palestine, threatening to target Israeli-linked ships “anywhere within our reach.”
The range of operations has now come to include ships transiting the Mediterranean Sea.
Sanaa highlights in a statement that the naval blockade which have successfully locked Israel out of the Red Sea, will expand to the Mediterranean Sea. “We will target any ship heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean, in any area we are able to reach,” Saree said.
Given that the eastern Mediterranean is 1,900 kilometers from Yemen, this may indicate that the conflict area is broadening, triggering a new escalation of the multi-month war. This phase will target Israeli ships or those heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean, and impose comprehensive sanctions on all vessels linked to companies that frequent the occupied state’s ports.
Furthermore, the measures will be applied to all shipping vessels and companies that deliver goods to Israel, regardless of their final destinations. This effectively bars them from all Yemeni operational waterways.
The declaration of this fourth phase [wa]s a clear signal of widening the conflict zone to include the Mediterranean and tightening the siege on Israel, which economically depends on sea trade. It poses a renewed challenge to Tel Aviv and its allies, increasing pressure, particularly on Washington and its European partners.
The Yemeni “circle of fire” – its maritime reach – now encompasses the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea. On land, Sanaa’s focus is on impacting Israel’s geographic depth, particularly its southern regions which abut the Red Sea.
An increasing number of global shipping companies are suspending shipments through the Red Sea amid attacks by the Yemeni naval forces.
This, in particular, happened after the United States announced the creation of a “military alliance to counter attacks,” which raised questions about how successful it would be and whether it was legitimate in the first place.
More and more companies are notifying all vessels that plan to pass through the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait to suspend their voyages until further notice.
The attack by the West on Yemen has now made this area into a “war zone”. That means for any western-linked ship sailing through the Red Sea will now face insurance rates that would make this journey not profitable.
The companies are reportedly making journeys around Africa instead, which usually increases a ship’s distance by almost 5,000 kilometers. It may take an additional 14 days for the shipment to reach its destination, and increase the cost of delivery for consumers.
War risk insurance premiums are on the rise naturally, but as vessels get re-routed around Africa shipping supply will be tighter, as cargoes travel longer, would put rates under a strong upwards pressure.
For ships heading to (the Israel regime) from Asia, the route around Africa is significantly longer — about 7,000 nautical miles and 10-14 days longer – than via the Suez Canal. This route also incurs higher fuel and labor costs.
The cost of shipping goods to the Israeli regime by sea has risen in recent days as some container lines shut down while others impose new surcharges, increasing pressure on Tel Aviv’s supply chain amid its merciless war with Gaza. The Israeli regime, whose economy depends on maritime trade, has not yet disclosed whether it will cover additional transportation costs.
Experts noted that just as Houthis attacked commercial tankers heading for Israeli ports, the movement also attacked American and British warships with drones and missiles. It will be very difficult for the US-led alliance to stop the Houthis attacks.
Nearly every week, American and British war planes launch bombing raids on Yemen, especially its harbors, TV stations, airports and other infrastructure, but these are mere pinpricks for a nation that has suffered nearly a decades’ worth of bombing.
The Houthis are used to sustaining heavy airstrikes and know the US won’t escalate because it won’t want to put boots on the ground or further inflame regional tensions.
This now makes the Houthis the victim-heroes, the heroic martyrs, they have no real reason to stop – and have a high tolerance for casualties.
In the face of its failure to deter Yemen, Washington recently offered the country “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the war on Gaza.
Washington pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza, according to Yemeni sources.
The offer also included “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.
The rapid development of Sanaa’s military capabilities during the ongoing war has positioned Yemen as a pivotal player not only regionally but globally, owing to its strategic position overseeing one of the world’s most crucial maritime passages.
Far from being a mere political and military backwater, Yemen has demonstrated far-reaching military capabilities and impressive strategic planning that has confounded the world’s greatest naval powers.
Sanaa’s formidable maneuvers in Middle East maritime zones have catapulted it to the forefront of the region’s Axis of Resistance as the member most capable of influencing global maritime security and regional stability.
Drone Warfare – challenging ‘Israel’, US Air Dominance
The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah – and Yemen’s Armed Forces carried out a series of operations downing drones, revealing their enhanced air defense capabilities and tactics, which are now believed to be pushing “Israel” and the United States to review their air operations plans in the region,
Since the outbreak of confrontations between Hezbollah and the Israeli occupation along the Lebanese border, the Israeli occupation force suffered the loss of six medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) and high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) Hermes-450 and Hermes-900 drones to missiles fired by the Resistance in South Lebanon.
During the same period, the United States lost four MQ-9 Reapers over Yemen to Yemeni missiles fired by the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF). On the 15th, Yemen shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper over the country’s Marib province, the fourth drone of its kind shot down by Sanaa’s army.
“The plane was targeted by a locally made surface-to-air missile,” Saree added.
The MQ9 is worth around $30 million. The Houthis are absolutely relentless. They have downed a $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone with just a $10k indigenous missile.
They are the first in the Global South ever to use anti-ship ballistic missiles against Israel-bound and/or -protecting commercial and US Navy ships. Those numbers were never seen before by Hezbollah or the Yemeni Armed Forces, and the recent Yemeni downing of an MQ-9 drone as “record-breaking”.
The downing of the drone came a day after the Yemeni army announced two ships in the Red Sea, one of them a US warship- the USS Mason, and hit it with an anti-ship ballistic missile! The first three were shot down on November 14, February 19 and April 25.
Ansarallah has captured one of the US Navy’s ultra-sophisticated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), the $1.3 million Remus 600, a torpedo-shaped underwater drone able to carry a massive payload of sensors.
Next stop: reverse engineering in Iran?
The Global South eagerly awaits, ready to pay in currencies bypassing the US dollar.
Yemen Targets NATO Warships
Yemen’s Houthis in late May, launched a missile attack on the US aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea. The attack came in response to US and UK strikes, a day earlier, on the Yemeni provinces of Sanaa, Hodeidah and Taiz.
The strikes allegedly targeted civilian infrastructure and resulted in the deaths of 16 people and over 40 wounded. Several missiles struck a Hodeidah radio station building, as well as the area surrounding Al-Thawra Hospital and a Coast Guard headquarters in Port Al-Salib, where several commercial ships were damaged.
In response to deadly US airstrikes on Yemen late last month, which killed at least 16 people, Yemen’s Armed Forces announced in a statement that it targeted Washington’s aircraft carrier in the Red Sea.
Sanaa’s forces said they struck the aircraft carrier again on 1 June.
“This represents a clear targeting of civilian objects, a blatant violation of all international laws, and a full-fledged war crime. Therefore, in response to these crimes and the American-British aggression… the Yemeni armed forces carried out a joint military operation targeting the American aircraft carrier Eisenhower in the Red Sea,” YAF spokesman Saree said in his statement.
He claimed that the strike on the US aircraft carrier “was accurate and direct,” but did not give details on damage the vessel suffered. This aircraft carrier was hit three times.
It retreated to the port of Jeddah, and flight operations had to be called off due to damage to the ship. It then sailed a further 800 km north!
Now, it is returning to its US base.
They are the first in the Global South ever to use anti-ship ballistic missiles against Israel-bound and/or -protecting commercial and US Navy ships.
Also, it’s the first time in in history, anti-ship ballistic missiles were deployed against seaborne vessels, a qualitative advancement in Ansarallah’s military bag of tricks. It’s also the first time that a US naval warship was attacked since the end of World War 2.
For all practical purposes, Ansarallah is at war with no less than the US Navy.
The YAF fired seven cruise missiles and four attack drones at the USS Eisenhower. He noted that the vessel had been hit twice within 24 hours. After the strikes, “it [the carrier] retreated towards the northern Red Sea, fearing further targeting by our Armed Forces,” the Houthi leader said.
“The ‘Eisenhower’ was 400 kilometers from the Yemeni coast during the targeting, then moved about 880 kilometers northwest of the Saudi port city of Jeddah,” he remarked.
“The operation to target the ‘Eisenhower’ was successful, and its air traffic halted for two days after the targeting.”
Washington, however, tried to deny that the vessel had been targeted, al-Houthi added, attributing the denial to “their embarrassment and sense of defeat and loss of prestige.”
However, “the facts will be revealed no matter how much the Americans try to deny the targeting operations,” he stated.
No update was provided on the damage reported to the US Navy flagship, which was forced to flee very far from Saudi Arabia’s main port after the attack.
Many of the sailors on the Eisenhower are suffering from shock. They are used to attacking, but never been attacked before.
Senior officers say that it was a “running battle, and at close quarters “. They ran out of missiles, and are now deemed “unfit for battle”.
The ship arrived back at its US port this week. At the moment there is no confirmation of any deaths or injuries on the ship during the attacks suffered by the Houthis.
Significance of the Eisenhower
The striking of the Eisenhower bears significant implications. Sanaa is undeterred by the increasing level of targets it can engage, showcasing a willingness to take bold actions without hesitation. It demonstrates the audacity to strike targets Washington considers red lines, including aircraft carriers and potentially land-based sites and bases in future stages.
The US Central Command announced the arrival of the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group in the 5th Fleet area on July 12, into the 5th Fleet’s area of operations, which includes the Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, and parts of the Indian Ocean.
In The aircraft carrier USS Theodore
The US in Denial
Following the Yemeni military’s announcement confirming the targeting of Eisenhower, the US initially downplayed the event, refraining from commenting.
Since early April, various European naval commanders have thrown their hands up in full public view.
Jerome Henry, commander of France’s Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace – deployed in the Red Sea for 71 straight days – said on 11 April that his ship had depleted its entire combat arsenal, and while it would head to port to replenish those munitions, would return to the Red Sea.
“We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. The Yemenis do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles , we had to carry out at least half a dozen assistances following Yemeni strikes,” Henry told French publication Le Figaro.
Also in early April, Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis, the Greek commander of the EU’s Operation Aspides, stated that his mission would not succeed with only three warships available to protect shipments through the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Since “the launch of the Operation Aspides on 19 February 2024 until now, the threat level remains the same,” lamented Gryparis.
Yemeni Brigadier-General Shamsan points out that the US defense system failures, and growing risks faced by the anti-Yemen naval coalitions, have “forced it and its allies to withdraw more than 18 ships from the theater of operations, as the number of American ships that left reached 10, while eight ships belonging to European tools left.”
Even though this was published this week, it was obviously written BEFORE the Yemen attack on Tel Aviv, which changes everything.
UPDATE 7/27:
Sputnik just published a report on how much the U.S. Navy spends on their weapons against the Houthis:
US Navy Drops Details on Pricey Missiles and Bombs It’s Using Against Defiant Houthis
The US and Britain have been bombing Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen since January, killing and maiming scores of civilians and targeting hundreds of militia sites but failing to “degrade” the Houthis missile and drone capabilities, or to stop their months-long partial blockade of the Red Sea in support of Palestine.
The US Navy has revealed new details about the weapons systems it has been using in the ongoing US-UK bombing campaign against the Houthis.
According to information shared with the Navy Times, F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which left the Middle East and steamed home last month after a nine-month long deployment in the Red Sea area, used the AIM-9X infrared-guided heat-seeking missile to target Houthi kamikaze drones.
The AIM-9X is a variant of Raytheon’s widely used AIM-9 Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missile.
The weapon has a per unit price of between $430,800 and $472,000, making it between 215 and 236 times the cost of the estimated $2,000-each price of a Houthi attack drone.
The Navy also confirmed the deployment of its Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, or AARGM, also launched from Super Hornets aircraft, against Houthi air defenses.
Produced by Northrup Grumman, these ground attack weapons have a per missile price of $874,000.
The Navy did not provide any details on the Houthi systems targeted by these weapons. The militia’s arsenal is thought to consist mostly of older Soviet-era SAMs and anti-aircraft guns, similarly dated radars, and Yemeni-built copies of Iranian missile and MANPADS designs.
Another weapon used by the Super Hornets in their campaign is the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon – a glide bomb possessed by the US Navy and Air Force and by the air forces of more than half a dozen of Washington’s allies.
The Navy said the Raytheon-made missiles being used against the Houthis are the latest, AGM-154C variant, which cost roughly $719,000 each. The Navy did not specify what kinds of targets the munition was used to attack, but the inertial and GPS-guided, terminal infrared homing-equipped weapons are designed for use against both stationary ground targets and moving targets at sea.
Apart from their machinegun-armed speedboats, the Houthis don’t have a navy to speak of, and their naval drones aren’t the fancy, $250,000 apiece, custom-built unmanned vehicles possessed by NATO countries.
Instead, the militia has improvised by fitting ordinary speedboats with remote controls, packing them with explosives and launching them toward their enemies, with the total cost of such weapons not exceeding $30,000 (or about 24 times less than the US munitions deployed to dispatch them).
People in this country are INSANE if they think that the U.S. and Israel can take on Iran in a war, when we cannot even deal with the much smaller country of Yemen, and their inexpensive weapons which are quickly depleting the U.S.’s weapon stockpiles and chasing our ships home.
And all of this while we continue spending $billions on Ukraine, where Russia has claimed they can easily defeat our “superior technology” weapons by simply jamming their signals, making them useless.
And the homeless problem in this country is just getting worse, as I see horrible headlines frequently like the one I put above, where a dog found an old and decaying body in a shed, and took the head off of it and dropped it on a public sidewalk.
America is the laughing stock of the world right now, as it is so plain to the rest of the world that the United States is an empire that is in decline and cannot even take care of their own people, but prefer sending weapons and soldiers around the world to kill people.
Chinese are making documentaries about ultra-extreme poverty and decaying cities, since they don’t exist in #China anymore.
And the prime location for these films? Greatest country on earth, USA 🇺🇸! Welcome to Oakland, California: pic.twitter.com/DlITruvvkr
There is a principle in life that says “you reap what you sow.”
President Obama has the distinction of being the first U.S. President to ever order the assassination of a U.S. citizen, who was living in Yemen at that time (source), with no trial and no due process of law.
And then President Trump did the same thing as soon as he became president, and ordered the assassination of more Americans living in Yemen, including an 8-year-old child, just so we could protect American interests in the Saudi oil fields across the border from Yemen. (Source.)
And yet most Americans cannot understand why people in the Middle East hate us, as they wave their Israeli flags shouting “nuke them!”
As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. At the breath of God they are destroyed; at the blast of his anger they perish. (Job 4:8-9)
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (Galatians 6:7)
The obviously staged Trump shooting is now being blamed on Iran as well, with Donald Trump saying that he “hopes America obliterates Iran” if he is assassinated, just as many other Christian Evangelical leaders have also called for the destruction of Iran.
