‘This is genocide’: Amnesty International accuses Israel of deliberately destroying Palestinians in Gaza

Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip amounts to genocide against the Palestinian people, Amnesty International concludes in a just-released report. Tel Aviv has rejected the accusations.

The London-based human rights group obtained “sufficient evidence” that:

◾️ The Jewish state unleashed “hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity".

◾️ Israel “committed prohibited acts under the [1948] Genocide Convention, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction” with the “specific intent to destroy Palestinians” in the area.

◾️ The Israeli military staged “direct deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructures where there was no Hamas presence or any other military objectives, the use of heavy explosive weapons with a wide radius of destruction in densely populated residential areas.”

Commenting on the report, Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement that the group’s “damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now."

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💥 Frontal attack

Russia's Sever Battlegroup's first-person view drone was highly accurate in destroying a Ukranian tank in Russia’s border region of Kursk.

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Trump takes credit for Bitcoin breakthrough

The US president-elect, who has repeatedly expressed support for cryptocurrencies, congratulated Bitcoin owners on its record growth, as well as taking credit for the boom.

"Congratulations, Bitcoiners!!! $100,000!!!! You're welcome!!! Together, we will make America Great Again!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.

Earlier, the Republican announced that he would nominate Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, who is expected to make the regulator's policy more friendly towards cryptocurrencies in comparison with the outgoing Biden administration.

Shortly after Trump's statement, Bitcoin updated its historical maximum and its value now exceeds $100,000.

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❗️Hezbollah to support Syria in fight against terrorists, movement leader has said.

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💰 Trump’s choices for top government positions look more like a billionaires’ club

It appears that many of the people tapped by US President-elect Donald Trump for his upcoming administration have at least one thing in common – they are rich. Filthy rich.

▪️Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and X owner who will lead Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has a net worth of over $335 billion.

▪️The net worth of Trump’s pick for the NASA administrator, Shift4 Payments founder Jared Isaacman, is estimated at $1.9 billion.

▪️Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur who also was tapped for DOGE, has approximately $1 billion to his name.

▪️Businessman and former Soros Fund Management partner Scott Bessent, nominated for Treasury secretary, also has a net worth of $1 billion.

▪️The family of Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law and likely future US ambassador to France, has a net worth of $7.1 billion.

▪️World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon, Trump’s choice for secretary of education, has a net worth of about $3.2 billion together with her husband Vince McMahon with whom she is currently separated.

▪️The net worth of financier Howard Lutnick, who may become the next secretary of commerce, has been estimated by US media to be at least $2.5 billion, and possibly even more.

The combined net worth of the Trump 2.0 administration has been estimated by media outlets such as the New York magazine at over $340 billion – a massive increase from the $6 billion his previous cabinet was worth.

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🇫🇷 The resonant resignation of the French prime minister was preceded on Thursday by mass demonstrations across the country, including in Paris, Sputnik's correspondent reports.

Thousands of public sector workers took to the streets in the capital – they are unhappy with the government’s “austerity” budget, which was expected to be adopted for 2025. According to media reports, employees are complaining about low salaries and layoffs.

The resignation of Barnier and the cabinet could have eased the situation – this means that instead of the proposed 2025 budget, the current conditions will continue to apply.

But de facto little has changed – employees are still wary of the government’s policies and are afraid that things will only get worse. The demonstrators chanted “Macron resign!” and the slogans on their posters expressed contempt for the country’s leadership.

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📑 Budapest Memorandum row: much ado about nothing?

On December 5, 1994, Russia, Ukraine, the US, and the UK signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine’s return of its nuclear weapons to Russia. The Zelensky regime has repeatedly invoked the memorandum to urge the US and its NATO allies to provide more military assistance, while the West and Ukraine regularly accuse Russia of breaching the agreement.

What does the memorandum say, and why are Western arguments hypocritical?


Is the document legally binding?

✍️ Western perspective: Yes, it is legally binding under the 1969 Vienna Convention and is subject to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
🇷🇺 Russian Perspective: It was never ratified by the parties; the US and Russia do not recognize the court's jurisdiction.


Did it provide security and territorial integrity "guarantees"?

✍️ Western Perspective: It provided significant, politically binding security assurances.
🇷🇺 Russian Perspective: The document's language is vague and does not explicitly mention "guarantees"; instead, it "reaffirms" "commitments" and "obligations."


Could Ukraine have retained the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal?

✍️ Western Perspective: Ukraine agreed to relinquish it but could have remained a nuclear state.
🇷🇺 Russian Perspective: Under Ukraine's Declaration of Sovereignty of 1990, it is non-nuclear; both the US and Russia sought to remove nuclear weapons from Ukraine.


Did Russia violate the Budapest Memorandum?

✍️ Western Perspective: Yes, twice, in 2014 and 2022.
🇷🇺 Russian Perspective: No, in both cases, Moscow acted within the UN Charter’s framework, including as regards the rights of peoples to self-determination and self-defense.

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⚡️ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: "We would like to have normal relations with all our neighbors, of course, but generally with all countries especially with the great country like the United States. And President Vladimir Putin repeatedly expressed his respect for the American people, for the American history, for the American achievements in the world, and we don't see any reason why Russia and the United States cannot cooperate for the sake of the universe."

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❗️ The launch of the Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile system has sent a clear signal to the West that Russia will be ready to do anything to defend its legitimate interests, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told American journalist Tucker Carlson.

"The message is that you, I mean the United States, and the allies of the United States who also provide this long-range weapons to the Kiev regime, they must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call the strategic defeat of Russia," Lavrov underscored.

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❗️Russia hopes its signal with Oreshnik was taken seriously - Lavrov

Moscow and Washington are not formally at war, but Ukraine's strikes deep inside Russia with US-made weapons, alongside Pentagon officials' rhetoric regarding limited nuclear strikes, is really worrying, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told American journalist Tucker Carlson.

"We don't want to aggravate the situation, but since ATACMS and other long-range weapons are being used against mainland Russia as it were, we are sending signals. We hope that the last one, a couple of weeks ago, the signal with the new weapon system called Oreshnik, was taken seriously," Lavrov said.

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