Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 26-27/2023
Video/Elias Bejjani: Christmas and Ingratitude Towards Parents: Honoring Parents Intertwines with Honoring God, The Father Himself./Elias Bejjani/December 25/2023
Text & Video/Elias Bejjani: Christmas and Ingratitude Towards Parents: Honoring Parents Intertwines with Honoring God, The Father Himself./Elias Bejjani/December 25/2023
​Hezbollah missiles hit Galilee church, wound 10, day after Christmas
Widespread casualties on day 80 of Lebanon conflict
Gallant claims Israel has pushed Hezbollah away from border
Report: Israel expecting Iranian response from Lebanon or Syria
Hezbollah condemns Israeli strike that killed Iran general in Syria
Report: Israel would settle for pushing Hezbollah a few kilometers away
Israel airstrikes hit deep in south as Hezbollah fires Burkan rockets
Report: Israel would be content with moving Hezbollah forces just a few kilometers away from their current positions
Israeli soldier dies from wounds incurred at Lebanon border
Hezbollah says targeted monitoring room near Shomera barracks
A “hot” southern day.. The attack area expands and the number of martyrs and wounded rises
Mneimneh to LBCI: We are in a very critical political moment
Two Hezbollah members were killed in clashes with Israel in southern Lebanon
4 settlers were injured by a missile fired by “Hezbollah” that landed in the Western Galilee
Anticipating the new year: Lebanon's hopes for peace, a president, and institutional 'revival'
Do they use Lebanese dollars in Lebanon?

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 26-27/2023
Israeli forces bombard central Gaza as death toll reaches 20,915
One dead, 18 wounded in strikes on pro-Iran sites in Iraq
Israeli forces kill 2 Palestinians in West Bank raid
IDF chief: We’ll reach Hamas leaders ‘whether it takes a week or months’
Gaza war will go on for months, Israel's military chief says
Israeli Authorities Foil Weapons Shipment from Turkey to West Bank
Hamas faces ‘unprecedented battle’ against Israel, says Sinwar
Atomic watchdog report: Iran increasing production of highly enriched uranium
Israel's strategic affairs minister to meet Blinken, White House's Sullivan
UN appoints Gaza humanitarian relief coordinator following aid vote
Blast near Israeli embassy in New Delhi, all staff unharmed
Children among 5 killed in Russian strikes on Syria
Biden orders strikes on an Iranian-aligned group after 3 US troops injured in drone attack in Iraq
Russia confirms damage to warship in Black Sea
Azerbaijan expels two French diplomats
Bodies of Kuwaiti and Saudi missing in Iraq have been found
Explosions off Egypt's south Sinai coast
Russian opposition leader Navalny resurfaces with darkly humorous comments

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 26-27/2023
Dilemmas of Truce and the Unfinished War/Charles Elias Chartouni/This is Beirut/December 26/2023
How UNWRA Grooms Terrorists/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./December 26, 2023
If We Like, We Will Kill You, Too’: The Persecution of Christians, November 2023/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/December 26, 2023
Israel-haters aren’t refighting the Vietnam War/Jonathan S. Tobin/JNS/December 26, 2023
Who killed Iran’s IRGC operative Sayyed Reza Mousavi in Syria, and why?/PAUL IDDON/RAWAN RADWAN/Arab News/December 26, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 26-27/2023
Video/Elias Bejjani: Christmas and Ingratitude Towards Parents: Honoring Parents Intertwines with Honoring God, The Father Himself.
Elias Bejjani/December 25/2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpRcbw7hGSg
December 25/2023

Text & Video/Elias Bejjani: Christmas and Ingratitude Towards Parents: Honoring Parents Intertwines with Honoring God, The Father Himself.
Elias Bejjani/December 25/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125370/text-video-elias-bejjani-christmas-and-ingratitude-towards-parents-honoring-parents-intertwines-with-honoring-god-the-father-himself-elias-bejjani-december-25-2023/
As we celebrate Christmas, the birth of the incarnated God, the holy symbol of humility, love, and sacrifice, it is imperative to emphasize the importance of respecting parents, honoring their sacrifices, and demonstrating gratitude through practical deeds. Failure to do so would amount to a bold rebellion against moral virtues, self-respect, and Almighty God Himself, who is a father.
Ingratitude, an age-old affliction, is unfortunately becoming more prevalent in today’s society, especially among children towards their parents. From a biblical standpoint, ingratitude is sternly condemned, with numerous verses highlighting the significance of honoring and respecting parents.
The Bible, a moral compass for millions, stresses the commandment to honor one’s parents. In the Ten Commandments, the fifth directive explicitly states, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). This commandment goes beyond mere familial respect; it is a divine decree that intertwines honoring parents with honoring God Himself.
As portrayed in biblical teachings, parents make profound sacrifices for their children. The Bible extols the virtues of selfless love and parental sacrifice. Yet, the contemporary landscape often witnesses children who, in times of need, display an alarming lack of gratitude. These children benefit from the sacrifices of their parents, but when the time comes to reciprocate or express gratitude, some fall short.
Biblical Insights on Ingratitude
Proverbs 23:22 : “Listen to your father, who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.” This verse emphasizes the sanctity of life given by parents and warns against disdain in their old age.
2 Timothy 3:2 : “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy.” This verse poignantly notes ingratitude as a negative trait, cautioning against its prevalence.
Luke 11:11-12 : “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?” This verse underscores the natural inclination of parents to provide for their children’s needs, highlighting the disheartening nature of ingratitude.
Ingratitude disrupts the sacred fabric of familial relationships and violates the divine principle of honoring parents. Parents sacrifice sleep, personal ambitions, and countless resources for the well-being of their children, yet some offspring respond with indifference or even scorn.
The Call to Gratitude
As society grapples with the erosion of familial values, a return to biblical principles is imperative. The commandment to honor parents is not a mere suggestion; it is a foundational principle that, when upheld, fosters a society rooted in gratitude, compassion, and divine respect.
Ingratitude, though prevalent, need not be an inevitability. By embracing the biblical wisdom that honoring parents is tantamount to honoring God Himself, we can rekindle the spirit of gratitude and restore the sanctity of parent-child relationships.
Let us heed the biblical call to gratitude, recognizing and appreciating the sacrifices parents make. In doing so, we honor not only our earthly guardians but also the Heavenly Father who ordained the commandment.

Hezbollah missiles hit Galilee church, wound 10, day after Christmas
JNS/December 26, 2023
Heavy exchange of fire reported at scene of attack • IDF announces death of soldier wounded on northern front • Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: Conflict in the north will continue until evacuated residents can return to their homes.
Israeli forces were involved in a heavy exchange of fire with Hezbollah on Tuesday after anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon struck a church in the village of Iqrit in the Western Galilee, wounding at least 10 Israelis, including a soldier reportedly in “serious” condition. The wounded included an Israeli civilian in his 80s and nine Israel Defense Forces soldiers, per local media. The troops were reportedly hurt while evacuating the wounded civilian under missile fire. IDF and Magen David Adom emergency medical service teams treated some of the injured at the scene, according to Israeli media reports. The IDF said that Hezbollah anti-tank missiles hit the St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church in Iqrit. “This attack is not only a clear violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, but also a violation of the freedom of worship,” the IDF stated.
Terrorists in Lebanon also targeted Moshav Dovev in the Upper Galilee on Tuesday, as well as Kibbutz Yiftah and Mount Dov near the border with Lebanon. The IDF responded by shelling the source of the attacks with tank and artillery fire.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror army has been waging a low-intensity conflict against Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in the Jewish state. In his Christmas message to Christians worldwide, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Jewish state confronts “monsters, who murdered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, who raped and beheaded women, who burned babies alive, who took babies hostages.”“This is a battle not only of Israel against these barbarians, it’s a battle of civilization against barbarism,” he added. “I know in this that we have your support.”
Heavy bombardments in Lebanon
Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck Hezbollah terror assets extensively in Southern Lebanon on Tuesday morning near border towns Aita al-Shaab, Ramyeh and Meiss ej-Jabal, per Lebanese media. Prior to the strikes, Israeli reconnaissance drones flew over several Lebanese towns near the frontier, according to the reports. The IDF said one of its tanks shelled a terror target to remove a threat from Lebanon. The strikes came after terrorists in Lebanon fired several rockets towards the Mount Dov region.
Name released
Also on Tuesday, the IDF released for publication the name of an Israeli soldier killed on the northern front. Sgt. Daniel Nachmani, 21, of Kfar Saba, died from wounds sustained during Dec. 22 operational activity. The previous day, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant held a situation assessment at the IDF’s Northern Command, where he was briefed on operational activities along the border. Gallant emphasized that the conflict in the north would continue until the security situation is improves, so some 80,000 evacuated residents can return home. “Fire was opened on Israel’s north without any Israeli provocation, and as a result of Hezbollah’s decision,” Gallant said. “We will not allow a return to the previous situation we were in until Oct. 6.” The minister added that Israel is hitting the terror group “very hard,” and Hazbollah has lost about 150 terrorists. “They have infrastructure that has been damaged, they have been pushed far in from the fence line and the air force flies freely over Lebanon,” he said. “We will expand our efforts.”“Hezbollah looks at what is happening in Gaza and it understands very well—what we did in Gaza can also be done in Beirut,” he added. “We do not want this scenario.” He added that residents of Israel’s north will not be left “without protection, and we will return them to their homes.” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant holds a situation assessment at the IDF’s Northern Command, Dec. 25, 2023. Photo by Elad Malka. Overnight Monday, terrorists in Lebanon fired several rockets towards the northern town of Manara. There were no reports of injuries in the town, which has been largely evacuated due to repeated Hezbollah anti-tank missile attacks. Earlier Monday, terrorists in Lebanese territory launched a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli aircraft. The missile did not strike the aircraft, which completed its mission successfully, according to the military. Also on Monday, the IDF began closing communities and roads along the Lebanese border following a military assessment. These closures impact the Upper Galilee, Mevo’ot HaHermon and Mateh Asher regional councils. There was a series of incidents at the northern border on Monday afternoon, including an anti-tank missile fired at Kibbutz Misgav Am from Lebanese territory. There were no reports of injuries and the IDF responded by firing at the source of the launch. Two anti-tank missiles were fired at Moshav Beit Hillel, also in the Galilee, with no reports of casualties. On Sunday, the IAF completed an extensive wave of attacks on Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon.

Widespread casualties on day 80 of Lebanon conflict
Arab News/December 26, 2023
BEIRUT: On Tuesday, the 80th day of the conflict in southern Lebanon, hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli army caused casualties among Lebanese civilians and the Israeli army, including serious injuries. Israel also violated Beirut’s airspace. An Israeli drone targeted a spot close to a supermarket on the road leading to the center of Touline village. Two civilians were injured by flying glass from the attack. Malek Awali, mayor of Touline, told Arab News that he was “surprised by this strike, as the village is 5 km north of the Litani Line, meaning that it is not located within the conflict area,” adding that “the bombed road doesn’t lead to the border region located south the line.” Awali said that “Touline’s residents didn’t leave the village, which hosts 170 Syrian refugee families and 100 Lebanese families who fled the border region, considering it is a safe village.”Before the attack on Touline, an Israeli drone carried out two strikes on an open area between the villages of Jibchit and Choukine. The explosions were heard in Nabatieh. A security source told Arab News that “the Israeli bombing last week and early this week has targeted roads that lead to the border region and that are vital for Hezbollah, namely the Al-Khardali road.”
Following the death of the Iranian military commander Sayyed Reza Mousavi in an Israeli raid in Damascus, people in the southern region feared that Iran and its allies would respond to the incident from Lebanon. Hezbollah announced that it had targeted several Israeli military outposts, causing direct casualties, including “the Zebdine outpost, using Burkan missiles,” adding that “Israeli enemy soldiers were deployed in the vicinity of the Ramyah outpost.”The militant group added that it targeted “a monitoring room near the Shomera outpost using appropriate weapons, killing and injuring its members.”Hezbollah also said that it targeted “a gathering of the enemy’s soldiers in the Dovev outpost using appropriate weapons, killing and injuring them.”
Israeli media said that “an Israeli soldier died due to injuries he received from an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon last week.”The Israeli army conducted military actions in southern Lebanon, using airstrikes, artillery shelling and phosphorus bombs. The attacks were directed at the outskirts of Blida, Mays Al-Jabal, Jabal Balat, Marwahin, and the eastern outskirts of Naqoura. The Israeli bombing targeted the vicinity of the Zabdin farm in the Shebaa Farms, and the Israeli army carried out two air strikes with missiles, targeting agricultural lands in the town of Mays Al-Jabal in the eastern sector. The Israeli artillery shelling also targeted the outskirts of the town of Rashaya Al-Fakhar. In the morning, the Israeli army fired toward the valleys and outskirts adjacent to the towns of Aita Al-Shaab, Ramiya, Tallet Al-Mutran, the Hamams area in Sarda, Wata Al-Khyiam, the outskirts of the town of Beit Lev, the outskirts of the town of Aitaroun, and the Al-Tarash area in the town of Mays Al-Jabal. The phosphoric artillery bombardment targeted the Balat Heights. During the Christmas holidays, MP Melhem Khalaf, from the Forces of Change, toured the southern border villages of Hasbaya, Al-Kfir, Al-Qulayaa, Deir Mimas, Rmeish, Ain Ebel and Bint Jbeil. He said on Tuesday: “There are 44 border villages experiencing war. There are victims and martyrs, shops are closed, daily life is disrupted, and anxiety, fear and destruction are spread. All the people of these villages are paying the price on our behalf and they are asking: Where do you stand concerning our concerns?”Hezbollah politicians replied to calls to spare Lebanon from further involvement in the Gaza war. Hezbollah MP Hussein Jashi referred to what he considered “the plea of Western delegations not to expand the confrontation front in Lebanon.” He said: “We are not concerned with reassuring the enemy and its settlers. Rather, we are present in our land and ready to respond to any attack decisively and without delay.”Former Hezbollah Minister Mohammed Fneish said: “No one can discourage us from performing our role. Whoever wants to bury his head in the sand should do so, and refrain from bearing responsibility. We are not immune from the repercussions of the conflict and we will not fall into the traps of promises or temptations.”

Gallant claims Israel has pushed Hezbollah away from border
Naharnet/December 26, 2023
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant has held a situation assessment in the Israeli army’s Northern Command, where he was briefed on operational activities conducted along the border with Lebanon. “We will not allow a return to the previous situation we were in until October 6th. We are hitting Hezbollah very hard – they have lost around 150 [operatives], they have infrastructure that has been damaged, they have been pushed far in from the fence line, and the Air Force flies freely over Lebanon,” Gallant told those present. “Hezbollah looks at what is happening in Gaza and it understands very well: what we did in Gaza can also be done in Beirut,” Gallant added. He also said Israel does not want this to happen. However, Israel, he said, will do what is necessary so the thousands of Israelis evacuated from near the border with Lebanon will be able to return to their residences.

Report: Israel expecting Iranian response from Lebanon or Syria
Naharnet/December 26, 2023 
Israel is expecting a response on the northern front to the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Sayyed Reza Mousavi in Syria, Israeli media reported on Monday evening, citing defense establishment officials. The northern front refers to Lebanon and Syria. The Israeli “Walla” news portal meanwhile quoted a senior Israeli official as saying that “the Israeli army is preparing for a possible Iranian response to the assassination of the senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard adviser, including the firing of rockets from Syria and Lebanon.”“Israel has not officially declared its responsibility for the assassination of the Iranian general in Syria, but according to a senior Israeli official, the general was responsible for the arms shipments that were being sent from Iran to the pro-Iranian groups in Syria and Hezbollah,” Walla added. On Monday, it was reported that Mousavi, a senior IRGC commander responsible for military cooperation between Iran and its proxies in the region, was killed in an airstrike in the Damascus countryside. According to Israeli security assessments, Iran had ramped up its transfer of weaponry to Shiite militias operating in Syria since the Israeli army launched its war on Hamas in Gaza.

Hezbollah condemns Israeli strike that killed Iran general in Syria
Agence France Presse/December 26, 2023 
Hezbollah has condemned an Israeli strike that left a senior general with Iran's Revolutionary Guards and three more fighters dead near the Syrian capital. "We consider this assassination a blatant and shameless assault and a crossing of limits,” Hezbollah said in a statement. The strike on Monday targeted Razi Moussavi, the most senior commander in the Quds Force -- the foreign arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- to be killed outside Iran in nearly four years. "Two foreign fighters and one Syrian fighter were also killed in the Israeli strike," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor. Moussavi was targeted shortly after he entered a farm in an area controlled by Iran-backed groups, said the British-based monitor with a network of sources on the ground. Residents in the Sayyida Zeinab district south of Damascus, where the strike hit, reported that Iran-backed groups have tightened security there. On Monday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi expressed condolences for Moussavi's death, saying Israel "will certainly pay for this crime". An IRGC statement said that Moussavi was a "companion" of Qasem Soleimani, the former Quds force leader killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad nearly four years ago. There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has intensified attacks in Syria, particularly against Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, since its war with Hamas, which Tehran supports, began in October. Iran has long backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, with Tehran and the groups it supports helping him claw back territory lost in more than a decade of war. Israel rarely comments on reported strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence there. More than half a million people have been killed in Syria's war, which erupted in 2011 after a brutal crackdown of anti-government protests.

Report: Israel would settle for pushing Hezbollah a few kilometers away
Naharnet/December 26, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared stances about the distance that Hezbollah should move to away from Israel’s border are different than what is being said behind the scenes, an Israeli radio network said. “During a session of the parliamentary foreign affairs and security committee, a senior political official arrived and admitted to the committee that Israel is talking about the Litani line in public, while in the contacts with the U.S. and French mediators it is clarifying that it would settle for pushing Hezbollah to the minimum needed distance, which is only a few kilometers,” the radio network said. “The committee’s members were also informed that in such a situation, Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the region will not be evacuated,” the radio network added.

Israel airstrikes hit deep in south as Hezbollah fires Burkan rockets
Naharnet/December 25/2023
Hezbollah carried out Tuesday more than eight attacks on Israeli posts, including an attack with Burkan rockets on the Israeli Zebdine post in the occupied Shebaa farms. Israel's army for its part shelled and fired heavy machinegun bursts towards the Zebdine Farm and its artillery shelled several border towns including Jabal Blat, Blida, Mhaibib, Mays al-Jabal, al-Khiam, Bestra, al-Naqoura, al-Khraybeh and al-Majidiyah. Hezbollah also targeted Shomera, al-Baghdadi, and soldiers in Ramia, al-Raheb and Dovev. It also targeted an Israeli force in Branit. The group said targets were direct hits and inflicted casualties, while Israeli media said one soldier was wounded in Adamit. Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli warplanes carried out two airstrikes on the border town of Mays al-Jabal amd later struck Jebshit deep in the south near Nabatieh, more than 20 kilometers from the border. Hezbollah had fired a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli military aircraft. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily clashes on the border that have killed around 150 people on the Lebanese side -- most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups, but also at least 17 civilians.
On the Israeli side, at least four civilians and eight soldiers have been killed, according to Israeli officials. Meanwhile Israeli media said that an Israeli soldier has died of his wounds caused by an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon last week.

Report: Israel would be content with moving Hezbollah forces just a few kilometers away from their current positions
Daily Star/December 26/2023
An Israeli radio network reported that there is a discrepancy between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public stance on Hezbollah’s proximity to Israel’s border and the position discussed in private meetings. According to the network, in a session of the parliamentary foreign affairs and security committee, a high-ranking political figure acknowledged that while Israel publicly advocates for Hezbollah to be pushed back to the Litani line, in discussions with U.S. and French mediators, Israel has indicated it would be satisfied with moving Hezbollah only a minimal distance away, amounting to just a few kilometers. The report also mentioned that the committee members were informed that under such an arrangement, Hezbollah’s existing infrastructure in the area would not be removed. This represents a more moderate position than the one Israel has been publicly expressing.

Israeli soldier dies from wounds incurred at Lebanon border
LBCI/December 26/2023
The Israeli army announced that an Israeli soldier was killed as a result of serious wounds he sustained a few days ago on the border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah says targeted monitoring room near Shomera barracks
LBCI/December 26/2023
On Tuesday, Hezbollah said it targeted a monitoring room near the Shomera barracks with appropriate weapons, achieving "direct hits."

A “hot” southern day.. The attack area expands and the number of martyrs and wounded rises
Hussein Saad/Janubia/December 26, 2023
The Israeli circle of fire targeted new areas throughout the southern regions, including those far from the border towns, and the drones, in particular, did not provide a target within the scope of its daily attacks, or an immediate target, related to the military operations taking place over large areas, starting from the coastal areas (photos). ) and even the hills of Kafr Shuba and Shebaa. This afternoon, an attack was recorded by Israeli drones, which fired more than one missile, on a vehicle in the Al-Ma’alia area, the Qalila Plain, south of the city of Tyre, which led to its complete burning. As a result, the Lebanese Civil Defense teams and the Islamic Message Scouts went to the place, where it was reported that the crash was carried out. Three martyrs, some of their bodies were transported to hospitals in Tyre, and a fourth person was injured. This is the second time, since the occupancy and support operation, carried out by Hezbollah, in support of Gaza, that vehicles have been targeted in this area, as it was preceded by the targeting of a vehicle belonging to the Palestinian Hamas movement, in which a field commander, Khalil Al-Kharaz, and four others, including two Turks, were martyred. These included Israeli attacks on the 81st day of the war, which were accompanied by additional displacement from the rear towns, to the areas of Tire, Nabatieh, and Zahrani. New areas. A drone raided a house in the Tamriya area, at the Toulin, Qabrikha and Al-Sawwana triangle, in the Marjayoun area, causing two minor injuries, and damage to a car and a house. The drones also raided the Jabshit area, in the Nabatieh district. The raids were accompanied by, With artillery bombardment with phosphorus bombs, it affected a large number of towns, including the outskirts of Zibqin, Jabal al-Batm, Marwahin, Jabal Balat, Abta al-Shaab, Ramya, Mays al-Jabal and other towns, causing fires to break out in the forests. Hezbollah, for its part, intensified its missile and attack aircraft attacks on a number of sites, barracks, and concentrations in Baranit, Doviv, Al-Rahib, Zabdin, and Al-Khalisa, which resulted in injuries to occupation soldiers in the Baranit barracks and damage to residential buildings and chicken farms..

Mneimneh to LBCI: We are in a very critical political moment
LBCI/December 26/2023
MP Ibrahim Mneimneh considered that "the Israelis have reached a stage where they feel that the battle is existential and that it affects significant political equations. Hamas is committed to the confrontation until the end." Speaking on LBCI's "Nharkom Said" TV show, he said, "I believe that we are heading towards a stage of intense strife with no clear political horizon, especially since the peace process has reached an impasse." He added, "We are in a very critical political moment because both sides are trying to prepare for what comes after Gaza, and what is happening today is due to the worsening situation."Regarding the extension of the army commander's term, he considered that "MPs are being placed in a situation of choosing between bad options, violating the law or undermining the constitution."Mneimneh said, "The fundamental criterion determining our direction is the president's election, and we will not accept any 'patchwork' approach."He emphasized his disagreement with Frangieh's candidacy for the presidency, stating that "his political path is entirely different from ours, and his political positions are completely contradictory to ours."He stressed that he is "not against dialogue, but the discussion around the 'dialogue table' is not fruitful," saying, "Let the dialogue take place within the parliament, where we have a working mechanism and an internal system."

Two Hezbollah members were killed in clashes with Israel in southern Lebanon
Anatolia/December 26, 2023
Beirut: Hezbollah announced, on Tuesday, the killing of two of its members in confrontations with the Israeli army on the southern Lebanese border, bringing the death toll to 128 since last October 8. In two separate statements, the party mourned “Hadi Hassan Awala from the town of Ghobeiry in the southern suburb of Beirut, and Ahmed Hassan Al-Dirani from the town of Qasrnaba in the Bekaa, who became martyrs on the road to Jerusalem,” without further details. In this context, the official Lebanese News Agency reported that two people were martyred as a result of an Israeli bombing that targeted their car in the town of Qalila, in the south of the country. She indicated that “ambulances belonging to the Islamic Message Scouts-Civil Defense transported two martyrs from a car bombed by the Israeli enemy on the Qalila-Ma’alia road in southern Lebanon, and the injured are being searched for,” without additional details. “In solidarity with the Gaza Strip,” Hezbollah and Palestinian factions in Lebanon have exchanged intermittent daily bombardment with the Israeli army since last October 8, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries on both sides of the border. The Israeli war, which has continued since last October 7 against the Gaza Strip, until Tuesday, left 20,915 martyrs and 54,918 wounded, most of them children and women, massive infrastructure destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to the Strip authorities and the United Nations.

4 settlers were injured by a missile fired by “Hezbollah” that landed in the Western Galilee
Al Syase/December 26/2023
The Israeli website Ynet reported that 4 settlers were injured as a result of a missile fired by the Lebanese Hezbollah on the Western Galilee. The Israeli website said that the missile fell on a church in the Akkarit village area in the Shamra region in Western Galilee, and Israeli army forces and Magen David Adom crews were treating the injured at the scene of the accident, indicating that one of them was seriously injured, a man in his eighties. After the forces arrived, other anti-tank missiles were fired in the area and the Israeli army exchanged fire at the site. An anti-tank missile was also fired at Moshav Dov in the Upper Galilee, and the Israeli army returned fire. According to reports from reserve units in the Western Galilee settlements, another anti-tank missile was fired earlier in the Shomra area, and mortar shells were also fired at the Livna outpost. Also in Moshav Dov, chicken coops were hit by an anti-tank missile, and there were no casualties in the incident.

Anticipating the new year: Lebanon's hopes for peace, a president, and institutional 'revival'
LBCI/December 26/2023
The Christmas celebrations were absent this year from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and other Palestinian cities amid the destructive war waged by Israel on Gaza, claiming the lives of thousands. This article was originally published in, translated from online newspaper Al Anbaa. In Lebanon, Christmas was present but with a somber tone, especially in the border villages that have been under Israeli attacks for over 78 days. The celebrations in these border villages served as an act of resilience against the backdrop of continuous Israeli shelling in the south.
On this occasion, Progressive Socialist Party leader and Member of Parliament Taymour Jumblatt extended Christmas greetings, stating: "During the holiday season, the focus remains on the tragedy of the Palestinian people and the people of the south, and the suffering of the oppressed."
He wished for genuine salvation for Lebanon and the causes of justice everywhere. Pope Francis addressed Christmas and the war in Gaza in his speech, calling on the international community to press for ending the war in Gaza, the release of all hostages, to put an end to this war, and to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged population. He expressed deep sorrow for the victims of the heinous attack. Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi expressed his disappointment, finding no change in the minds of the deputies that would make them insist on electing a president, which means that the presidency and the completion of appointments have been postponed to the new year. In this context, political sources expressed concern that 2024 may be like its predecessors, witnessing the accumulation of unresolved files. In a call with Al Anbaa, they mentioned many files that were hoped to be resolved on such occasions but were transferred to the years that followed, and their solution now required a "divine miracle."Sources told Al Anbaa that the parliament's current composition and division make it incapable of electing a president through local consensus. It is nearly impossible for parliamentary blocs to find common ground that might help elect a president without external pressure, at least equivalent to the pressure exerted to extend the term of the army commander.The sources expected the appointment of the Chief of Staff and the Military Council for army leadership to pass, linking the president's election to the cessation of the war on Gaza. There will be no initiative towards the Lebanese interior unless the international forces put an end to the movements of the Houthis in the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Red Sea. This is expected to take time to resolve, indicating that no presidential breakthrough is likely before next spring. However, parliamentary sources told Al Anbaa about initiatives to revitalize the presidential deadline, which will be witnessed at the beginning of the new year. The most important of these is the initiative of Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri, who anticipates the possibility of finding common ground between various political forces, relying on the atmosphere that accompanied the extension of the army commander's term that can be built upon in the presidential deadline. Therefore, the Lebanese await the beginning of a new year, hoping it brings peace to their homeland and salvation through the election of a president and the revival of state institutions, which are witnessing unprecedented collapse one after another.

Do they use Lebanese dollars in Lebanon?
Daily Star/December 26/2023
In recent years, Lebanon’s economic landscape has undergone significant changes, leading many to wonder about the state of its currency. One question that often arises is: Do they use Lebanese dollars in Lebanon? To understand this, we need to delve into the nuances of the Lebanese economy and its currency system. Lebanon’s Dual Currency System Lebanon operates on a unique dual currency system, where both the Lebanese pound (LBP) and the US dollar (USD) are used. This system, established during the civil war in the 1990s, allows for transactions in both currencies. The Lebanese pound remains the official currency, but the US dollar is widely accepted in most businesses, including retail, real estate, and hospitality sectors. Impact of Economic Crisis on Currency Use The recent economic crisis in Lebanon has had a profound impact on the use of currency. With the devaluation of the Lebanese pound and the liquidity crisis, many people have turned to the US dollar as a more stable alternative. This shift has been accelerated by the limited access to Lebanese pounds in banks, driving a higher reliance on dollars for everyday transactions. Understanding Exchange Rates The exchange rate between the Lebanese pound and the US dollar is a critical aspect of Lebanon’s dual currency system. Traditionally, Lebanon maintained a pegged exchange rate, but recent economic challenges have led to a fluctuating and often unofficial market rate. This situation has resulted in a complex environment for currency exchange, with different rates being used for different types of transactions. Currency Preferences Among Locals and Tourists Locals and tourists in Lebanon often have different preferences when it comes to currency usage. While locals are more inclined to use Lebanese pounds for smaller, everyday transactions, tourists and expatriates often find it more convenient to use US dollars, especially for larger purchases or in tourist-centric areas.
Business Transactions in Lebanese Dollars Business transactions in Lebanon are significantly influenced by the current economic situation. Many businesses prefer to conduct transactions in US dollars due to the stability it offers compared to the volatile Lebanese pound. This preference extends to various sectors, including imports, exports, and large-scale local transactions. Challenges Faced by Consumers and Businesses Consumers and businesses in Lebanon face several challenges due to the dual currency system. The fluctuating exchange rate can lead to uncertainty and potential losses. Additionally, the disparity in currency preferences between different groups creates a complex market dynamic, affecting pricing, purchasing power, and overall economic stability. Government Measures and Economic Reforms The Lebanese government has implemented several measures to address the challenges posed by the dual currency system. These include efforts to stabilize the Lebanese pound, regulate the banking sector, and introduce economic reforms. The effectiveness of these measures is pivotal in determining the future role of the US dollar in Lebanon’s economy.
Navigating Currency Exchange and Banking For those dealing with currency exchange in Lebanon, it’s crucial to stay informed about the latest exchange rates and banking regulations. Understanding the nuances of Lebanon’s banking system, including withdrawal limits and currency conversion policies, is essential for effective financial management. Future Outlook of Lebanon’s Currency System The future of Lebanon’s currency system is closely tied to the country’s economic recovery and political stability. Efforts to strengthen the Lebanese pound and reduce reliance on the US dollar are ongoing. However, the pace and success of these efforts will largely depend on broader economic reforms and international support.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 26-27/2023
Israeli forces bombard central Gaza as death toll reaches 20,915
Associated Press/December 26, 2023
Israeli forces bombarded Palestinian refugee camps in central Gaza on Tuesday, residents said, in apparent preparation to expand their ground offensive into a third section of the besieged territory. The opening of a potential new battle zone points to the long and destructive road still ahead as Israel vows to crush Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. For weeks, Israeli forces have been engaged in heavy urban fighting in northern Gaza and in the southern city of Khan Younis, driving Palestinians into further smaller corners of territory in search of refuge. Despite international pressure for a cease-fire and U.S. calls for a reduction in civilian casualties, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday warned that the fight "isn't close to finished." Israel's offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than 20,600 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead. Meanwhile, there were new signs of the Israel-Hamas war enflaming tensions around the region. An Israeli airstrike in Syria killed an Iranian general, bringing vows of revenge from Iran. U.S. warplanes hit Iranian-backed militias in Iraq who had carried out a drone strike that wounded American soldiers there. Residents of central Gaza on Tuesday described a night of shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps. The camps are built-up towns, housing Palestinians driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war and their descendants –- and now also crowded with people who fled from the north. "The bombing was very intense," Radwan Abu Sheitta, a Palestinian teacher said by phone from his home in Bureij. "It seems they are approaching," he said of the Israeli troops. The Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military arm, said its fighters struck an Israeli tank east of Bureij. Its report could not be independently confirmed, but it suggested Israeli forces were moving toward the camp. Warplanes and artillery also hammered areas east of Nuseirat camp. "We couldn't sleep because of the bombing," said Ezzel-Din Mohammed Abdallah al-Masry, a Palestinian fisherman who was displaced to the area from northern Gaza with his five children and other family. "The children are terrified. We are terrified."
REGIONAL SPILLOVER
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq carried out a drone strike on a U.S. base in Irbil in northern Iraq on Monday, wounding three American servicemembers, one of them critically, according to U.S. officials. In response, American warplanes before dawn Tuesday hit three locations in Iraq connected to one of the main militias, Kataib Hezbollah. The Israeli strike Monday hit a neighborhood of the Syrian capital Damascus, killing Gen. Seyed Razi Mousavi, an adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria. The strike hit as he was entering a farm reportedly used as an office of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the district of Sayeda Zeinab on Damascus' outskirts, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Throughout the war, a constellation of Iranian-backed militia groups around the region have stepped up attacks in support of Hamas. So far, all sides have appeared to calibrate the violence to stay short of sparking an all-out conflict, but the fear is that an unexpected escalation could spiral out of control. Hezbollah and Israel almost daily exchange volleys missiles, airstrikes and shelling across the Israeli-Lebanese border. Iran-backed militias in Iraq have launched more than 100 attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. In the Red Sea, attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen against commercial ships have disrupted trade and prompted a U.S.-led multinational naval operation to protect shipping routes.
GAZA FIGHTING
Israeli troops have been engaged in nearly two months of ground combat with Hamas and other militants in northern Gaza and weeks of urban fighting in Khan Younis. The battles and bombardment have levelled large swaths of both areas, and strikes have continued across the territory. Still, Hamas fighters have shown a tough resilience. The Israeli military announced the deaths of two more soldiers Tuesday, bringing the total killed in the ground offensive to 158. Militants late Monday launched a barrage of rockets into Israel, triggering air raid sirens in the southern city of Ashkelon. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. Israel has vowed to continue fighting to eliminate Hamas' military and governing capabilities in Gaza, after the militants carried out their shock attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7, reportedly killing around 1,200 people and taking some 240 hostage. Israel says it also aims to free the more than 100 hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza. Israel faces international criticism for the civilian death toll that reached Tuesday 20,915. It blames Hamas, citing the militants' use of crowded residential areas and tunnels. Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, without presenting evidence. In Khan Younis, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Tuesday morning its medics evacuated several dead and wounded after a house in the city's al-Amal neighborhood was bombed overnight. In nighttime footage posted by the charity, first responders and residents pulled a dead person from the rubble, using lights from mobile phones.An Associated Press cameraman on the scene saw at least two dead and 15 wounded, mostly children. The expanding fighting has pushed the population into a shrinking area, particularly the central city of Deir al-Balah and Rafah, at the far south of Gaza on the Egyptian border. More than a million people have squeezed into U.N. shelters, and many more displaced people are crowded into houses.
U.N. officials have warned that a quarter of the population is starving under Israel's siege of the territory, which allows in only a trickle of food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies. The U.N. Security Council last week called for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza. But so far there has been little concrete sign of a change in entry of aid, which the U.N. has said it struggles to distribute because many areas are cut off by fighting. Meanwhile, negotiations have seemed to make little headway toward a pause in fighting to allow the exchange of more hostages held in Gaza for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Egypt has put forward an ambitious peace proposal aiming not only to end the war but also to lay out a plan for the day after. It calls for a phased hostage release and the formation of a Palestinian government of experts to administer the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, according to a senior Egyptian official and a European diplomat familiar with the proposal. But it has gotten a cool public reception from Israel and Hamas. It falls short of Israel's declared goal of crushing Hamas and appears to be at odds with Israel's insistence on maintaining military control over Gaza for an extended period after the war. It is also unclear if Hamas would agree to relinquish power after controlling Gaza for the past 16 years.

One dead, 18 wounded in strikes on pro-Iran sites in Iraq
Agence France Presse/December 26, 2023
Iraq on Tuesday denounced U.S. air strikes in the country as a "hostile act" after the Pentagon said it had targeted three sites used by pro-Iran forces after coming under fire. The government said the strikes that killed one member of the security forces and wounded 18 other people, including civilians, were an "unacceptable attack on Iraqi sovereignty" that damaged bilateral relations. An Iraqi interior ministry official said the strikes targeted a Hashed al-Shaabi site in the central city of Hilla, one of two locations targeted in Babylon province. Another strike hit the southern province of Wassit, the official said. Hours earlier the United States said its forces had carried out strikes on three sites used by pro-Iran groups in Iraq in response to a series of attacks on U.S. personnel. U.S. forces have repeatedly targeted sites used by Iran and its proxy forces in Iraq and Syria in response to dozens of attacks on American and allied forces in the region since the October 7 outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. "U.S. military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kataeb Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. The Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, forms part of the Hashed al-Shaabi, a coalition of former paramilitary forces that are now integrated into Iraq's regular armed forces. "These precision strikes are a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias, including an attack by Iran-affiliated Kataeb Hezbollah and affiliated groups on Erbil Air Base" on Monday, Austin said. That attack wounded three U.S. military personnel, one critically, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed on the attack -- which was carried out with a one-way attack drone -- and directed the U.S. strikes in a call with Austin and other national security officials after ordering the defense department to prepare a response, the statement said. Biden "places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm's way. The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue," the statement added. The drone attack was claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose formation of armed groups affiliated with the Hashed al-Shaabi. A tally by U.S. military officials has counted 103 attacks against its troops in Iraq and Syria since October 17, most of which have been claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which opposes US support for Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces kill 2 Palestinians in West Bank raid
Agence France Presse/December 26, 2023
Israeli forces killed two Palestinians on Tuesday in a raid on a refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian health ministry said. The two -- aged 17 and 31 -- were shot dead in the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, the ministry said. The army did not offer an immediate comment. A resident from the camp told AFP that troops stormed the camp from its southern and northern entrances. "The two men were killed just outside their homes," he said, asking to remain anonymous over security concerns. He said after the death of the first man there were clashes in which five others were wounded and one of them later died. Violence across the West Bank has flared since the war between Israel and Hamas militants erupted in the Gaza Strip following an attack on Israel by the Islamist group on October 7. That attack left around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, dead in Israel, according to an AFP tally based on the latest official Israeli figures. In Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza, more than 20,600 people have been killed, most of them women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. More than 300 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since the Gaza war erupted, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.

IDF chief: We’ll reach Hamas leaders ‘whether it takes a week or months’
YAAKOV LAPPIN/JNS/December 26, 2023
Israel was attacked in seven areas and hit back in six, per Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; the IDF announced three more casualties in Gaza. The Israeli military will reach Hamas’s leadership in the Gaza Strip “whether it takes a week or months,” Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi vowed on Tuesday after visiting the Palestinian enclave. The war against Hamas will “continue for many more months, and we will act in different ways—so that the achievement is preserved over time,” said Halevi. “There are no magic solutions, no shortcuts in the fundamental dismantling of a terror organization, but rather stubborn and resolute fighting, and we are very, very determined.”“We eliminated many terrorists and commanders, some of whom surrendered to our forces, and we took hundreds captive. We destroyed underground infrastructure and many weapons,” Halevi said. “Now, we are focusing our efforts on the south of the Strip—Khan Yunis, the central camps and beyond, and we will continue both to maintain and deepen the achievement in the north of the Strip.”Halevi added that Israel won’t permit a return to the pre-Oct. 7 security situation. “We will not allow such an event to recur,” he said.
Israeli Air Force airstrikes continue, according to Halevi. “A building falls when it is an enemy target. A building falls when it poses a danger to our forces,” he said. Israeli ground forces operating in Gaza receive heavy fire support from the air, sea and land wherever and whenever they requested it, the IDF chief said. The military is learning and adapting its methods, as it learns about each area and its terrain, the enemy and its own needs, he added. “We are intensifying the military pressure in different ways, with cunning,” Halevi said. “This pressure allows the realization of the war goals—the dismantling of Hamas and the return of the captives.”Responding to a reporter’s question, Halevi stressed that Israel “has the armaments required to do what is needed in all arenas.”“I will not specify numbers here. I do not think it is right for those around us to know what weapons the IDF manages—we should keep it to ourselves,” he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant briefed members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. “We are in a multi-front war. We are being attacked from seven different sectors—Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran,” he said. “We have responded and acted already in six of these sectors, and I say here in the most explicit way: Anyone who acts against us is a potential target, no one is immune.”“The State of Israel will know what to do. The defense establishment is prepared,” he warned. “The results in Gaza everyone sees and understands, especially Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah.” “I want to tell you that this is a long, hard war and there are prices—heavy prices—but its justification is the highest,” he added. “We were attacked brutally and barbarically in order to deter us from living here. We must make clear that anyone who makes such a move is decisively defeated. Whether it takes months or years, this matter must be finished.”Also on Tuesday, the IDF announced that three more soldiers were killed in action in Gaza. Maj. Shay Shamriz, 26, a company commander in the Nahal Brigade, and Capt. (res.) Shaul Greenglick, 26, an officer in the Nahal Brigade, were killed in northern Gaza. Master Sgt. Maor Lavi, 33, of the School for Infantry Corps Professions and Squad Commanders, was also killed in Gaza. The IDF did not specify where in the Strip. Meanwhile, the IDF Givati Brigade’s Tsabar battalion, which fought to secure Kfar Aza during Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, is engaged in fierce battles in Daraj Tuffah in the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF said. In one operation, the forces killed many terrorists in close-quarter combat. Soldiers found and destroyed 10 tunnel shafts. They also destroyed rocket launchers and located an explosive device, a box of grenades and uniforms worn by Hamas’s elite “Nukhba” terror squad.

Gaza war will go on for months, Israel's military chief says
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/December 26, 2023
Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza will likely go on for many months, the country's military chief said on Tuesday. "The war will go on for many months and we will employ different methods to maintain our achievements for a long time," Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi told reporters in a televised statement on the Gaza border. "There are no magic solutions, there are no short cuts in dismantling a terrorist organization, only determined and persistent fighting," said Halevi. "We will reach Hamas' leadership too, whether it takes a week or if it takes months."Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas after its fighters burst into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages. Its air, sea and ground offensive in Gaza has since killed nearly 21,000 Palestinians, according to authorities. "We said from its first moments that this would be a long war because it was right to set far-reaching goals and we will reach far, that's why the duration will be long." The duration, Halevi said, will allow the military to adapt its methods. "Ultimately, will we be able to say that there is no enemy surrounding the state of Israel? I think that's too ambitious, but we will create a new security situation," said Halevi.

Israeli Authorities Foil Weapons Shipment from Turkey to West Bank
FDD/December 26/2023
Latest Developments
Israeli authorities foiled an attempt on December 21 to smuggle thousands of weapons parts into the West Bank. According to a joint statement from Israeli police and the Israel Tax Authority, inspectors found automatic weapon and assault rifle components inside an industrial weaving machine that weighed several tons and was 10 meters (33 feet) long. The shipment, which arrived from Turkey to the port of Ashdod, was destined for the West Bank city of Nablus, a hotbed for Palestinian terrorist activity. Authorities also found counterfeit coin molds in the shipment.
With assistance from the Israel Defense Forces, police arrested three suspects on suspicion of trafficking and importing illegal weapons for terrorist activities, including two elderly residents of Nablus and an Arab Israeli resident of Tayibe.
Expert Analysis
“At some point, the international community will wake up to the fact that Turkey has become a state sponsor of terrorism. The country is not just a safe haven for Hamas. It is not just the hub of the Hamas financial portfolio. It is now the transit point for weapons of war bound for violent Palestinian factions. The United States has warned Turkey that it needs to turn off the spigot of Hamas support. Until now, Ankara has steadfastly refused. It is now incumbent upon Washington to impose harsh sanctions, not on more Hamas operatives, but on the government of Turkey itself.” — Jonathan Schanzer, FDD Senior Vice President for Research
“The latest seizure of weapons originating from Turkey confirms what is already widely known: Turkey is a major conduit for weapons shipments and raw materials to Hamas and possibly other terrorist groups. In July, Israeli authorities seized tons of dual-use materials originating from Turkey used in the making of explosives and rockets. The likelihood of these shipments occurring without the knowledge — or even the blessing — of the Erdogan government is highly unlikely.” — Sinan Ciddi, FDD Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Turkey’s Weapons Smuggling
Turkey has become a common jurisdiction of origin for the smuggling of Iranian weapons and explosive material to Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. On September 14, Israeli customs authorities revealed that they intercepted 16 tons of explosive material on its way from Turkey to the Gaza Strip in July. According to the Israeli Tax Authority spokesperson, the customs agents in Ashdod inspected two containers that were supposed to contain 54 tons of gypsum — the key ingredient in plaster. After testing the material in a lab, authorities concluded that some of the bags contained ammonium chloride — a dual-use chemical used in making rockets.
Turkey Protects and Supports Palestinian Terrorists
Turkey, a NATO member, has long provided a haven for leaders and members of Palestinian terrorist organizations. Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, former Hamas chief Khaled Mashal, and deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau and senior military official Saleh al-Arouri, have openly met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan many times, including in July and October of this year. Ankara has reportedly provided Arouri and Haniyeh with residency and Turkish passports, which would allow them to travel internationally unhindered. Arouri is a U.S.-designated terrorist with a $5 million bounty on his head. On December 13, the United States and the United Kingdom jointly sanctioned eight additional Hamas finance officials and representatives living in Turkey. They are accused of raising money for the terrorist group. Following the October 7 massacre, Erdogan has been one of Hamas’s staunchest public supporters. Erdogan has called Hamas “freedom fighters” while labeling Israel a “terrorist state” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “butcher” and “war criminal.”

Hamas faces ‘unprecedented battle’ against Israel, says Sinwar
Nataliya Vasilyeva/The Telegraph/December 25, 2023
Yahya Sinwar has not been seen in public since the Oct 7 terror attacks -
Hamas is facing an “unprecedented battle” with Israel, the terror group’s leader in Gaza has said, in his first public message since the Oct 7 attacks. Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to have been one of the masterminds of the devastating terror attack on Israel, rejected any possibility of compromising to end the war.Hamas, he said in a letter published by Al Jazeera on Monday, is “fighting a fierce, violent and unprecedented battle against the Israeli occupation forces, and the occupation army suffered heavy losses in life and equipment”.He falsely claimed that his terrorist forces had killed more than a thousand Israeli soldiers. According to Israel, 156 soldiers have died in the ground operation in Gaza. Meanwhile, Iran has accused Israel of launching an airstrike on a suburb in Damascus, Syria, killing a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC vowed to retaliate for the death of Seyed Razi Mousavi, one of its top commanders in Syria who was close to Gen Qassem Soleimani – the Revolutionary Guard leader assassinated in an US drone strike in Iraq in 2020. Israel “will pay the price” for killing one of our old military advisers in Syria, the group said in a statement.
Potential deal
Sinwar, the highest ranking Hamas official still holed up in Gaza, was defiant about Israel’s advance across Gaza. He pledged to smash Israel’s forces and vowed Hamas “will not be subject to the conditions of occupation”. He appeared to be referring to ongoing discussions over a potential deal with Israel. Egypt reportedly drafted a comprehensive plan that would see a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the release of all Israeli hostages and talks to establish an inclusive Palestinian government in Gaza under the auspices of Egypt. Hamas has not officially commented on the proposal, which was due to be discussed by the Israeli government on Monday evening. After the war began following the Hamas onslaught on Oct 7, Israel vowed to eradicate the terror group in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed in recent weeks that it was close to catching Sinwar, who is believed to be hiding in the terrorist group’s extensive network of tunnels.
‘We’re not stopping’
The Hamas leader has not been seen in public since the Oct 7 attack, and the IDF earlier this month dropped flyers on Gaza, promising a $400,000 (£315,000) bounty for information on his whereabouts. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, on Friday said the IDF was gradually completing its objectives in northern Gaza, adding that Sinwar will soon “meet the barrels of our guns”.Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, visited the Gaza Strip on Monday and vowed to step up the army’s assault in the Palestinian territory.“I just came back from Gaza ... we’re not stopping, we’re continuing to fight and we’re intensifying the fighting in the coming days. It’s going to be a long war that’s not close to ending,” he said.

Atomic watchdog report: Iran increasing production of highly enriched uranium
VIENNA (AP)/December 26, 2023
Iran has increased the rate at which it is producing near weapons grade uranium in recent weeks, reversing a previous slowdown that started in the middle of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to member states. Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in the report that Iran “in recent weeks had increased its production of highly enriched uranium, reversing a previous output reduction from mid-2023," according to an IAEA spokesperson Sunday. Iran had previously slowed down the rate at which it was enriching uranium to 60% purity. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. The U.N. nuclear watchdog said its inspectors had verified the increased rate of production since the end of November at facilities in Natanz and Fordow to about 9 kilograms per month, up from 3 kilograms per month since June and representing a return to earlier levels of production. Enriching uranium means increasing the percentage of uranium-235, the isotope of uranium that can be used in nuclear fission.

Israel's strategic affairs minister to meet Blinken, White House's Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters)/December 26, 2023
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer will meet U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday to discuss the conflict in Gaza and the return of hostages held by Islamist group Hamas, the White House said. The meeting in Washington comes as the United States has publicly urged Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza amid the rising death toll from the conflict. Blinken also held a call with Dermer earlier this month. The days around Christmas have seen an upsurge in the war, particularly in a central area just south of the seasonal waterway that bisects the Gaza Strip. Israel launched fresh air strikes against central Gaza on Tuesday, where the United Nations said it was alarmed by an intensification of Israeli attacks that killed more than 100 Palestinians in one part of the enclave since Christmas Eve. Hamas killed 1,200 people and captured 240 hostages on Oct. 7 in the deadliest day in Israeli history. Since then, Israel has assaulted Hamas-ruled Gaza, with Palestinian health authorities saying nearly 21,000 people have been confirmed killed in Israeli strikes and thousands more are feared buried under rubble.

UN appoints Gaza humanitarian relief coordinator following aid vote
WASHINGTON (Reuters)/December 26, 2023
The United Nations on Tuesday announced the appointment of a coordinator to oversee humanitarian relief shipments into Gaza as part of a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on Friday to boost humanitarian aid. Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands will be the senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza and will start the role on Jan. 8, the U.N. said in a statement. "In this role she will facilitate, coordinate, monitor and verify humanitarian relief consignments for Gaza," said the U.N. She will also establish a "mechanism" to accelerate aid into Gaza through countries not involved with the conflict. Friday's Security Council resolution stopped short of calling for a ceasefire after a week of vote delays and intense negotiations to avoid a United States veto. It calls for "urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities." Amid global outrage over a rising Gaza death toll in 11 weeks of war between Israel and Hamas and a worsening humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave, the U.S. abstained to allow the 15-member council to adopt a resolution drafted by the United Arab Emirates.
The U.S. and Israel oppose a ceasefire, believing it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead supports pauses in fighting to protect civilians and free hostages taken by Hamas. After Hamas killed 1,200 people and captured 240 hostages on Oct. 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with an assault that has laid much of Hamas-ruled Gaza to waste. Palestinian health authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza say nearly 21,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes, with more feared buried under rubble. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, many several times.

Blast near Israeli embassy in New Delhi, all staff unharmed
NEW DELHI (Reuters)/December 26, 2023
A blast occurred near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday evening and all staff were unharmed following the explosion, authorities said. "We can confirm that around 5:20 pm (local time, 1150 GMT) there was a blast at close proximity to the embassy," Israeli Embassy spokesperson Guy Nir told Reuters, adding that local police and security teams were investigating the incident. Israel's foreign ministry said all staff were unharmed following the blast and Israeli authorities were cooperating with their Indian counterparts to look into the cause of the explosion. The city's fire service had not found anything so far in their search operation, senior fire department official Atul Garg told Indian news agency ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake. In January 2021, a small bomb went off near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, without harming anyone. An Israeli official said at the time that Israel was treating the blast as a terrorist incident.

Children among 5 killed in Russian strikes on Syria
Agence France Presse/December 26, 2023
Russian air strikes on the last major rebel stronghold in Syria killed five civilians from the same family, including three children, rescuers and a war monitor said on Tuesday. Moscow is one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's key backers, providing him with military, political and economic support in the country's 12-year civil war. "On December 25 at 10:00 pm (0700 GMT) Russian warplanes targeted civilian houses" on the outskirts of the town of Armanaz, in Idlib province, said Abdel Halim Shehab of the White Helmets voluntary search-and-rescue group. Members of the White Helmets, which operates in rebel-held zones of northern Syria, pulled the victims from under the rubble of their house, he said. "The victims were from the same family of six: five of them were killed and a child survived," he said, identifying the dead as the father, mother and three of their children. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor with a network of sources across the war-torn country, also said Russia carried out the strikes. The Britain-based organisation reported the same toll of five dead and said the family's house was located on farmland near Armanaz. A brutal Syrian government crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired protests that erupted in 2011 spiralled into a devastating war involving foreign armies, militias and jihadists. More than half a million people have been killed in the conflict. Russia's intervention in the war since 2015 has helped forces loyal to Assad claw back much of the territory they lost to rebels early in the conflict. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist group led by Al-Qaeda's former Syria branch, controls swathes of Idlib province and parts of neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces. The HTS is considered a terrorist organisation by Syria, the United States and the European Union. It regularly clashes with Syrian and allied Russian forces. On Sunday, Syria's defence ministry said its forces had shot down seven drones launched by "terrorist organisations" in Hama and Aleppo provinces. Since 2020, a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia and rebel-backer Turkey has largely held in Syria's northwest, despite periodic clashes.

Biden orders strikes on an Iranian-aligned group after 3 US troops injured in drone attack in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP)/December 26, 2023
President Joe Biden ordered the United States military to carry out retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three U.S. service members were injured in a drone attack in northern Iraq. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said one of the U.S. troops suffered critical injuries in the attack that occurred earlier Monday. The Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, under an umbrella of Iranian-backed militants, claimed credit for the attack that utilized a one-way attack drone.Iraqi officials said U.S. strikes targeting militia sites early Tuesday killed one militant and injured 18. They came at a time of heightened fears of a regional spillover of the Israel-Hamas war. Iran announced Monday that an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus killed one of its top generals, Razi Mousavi, who had been a close companion of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the former head of Iran’s elite Quds Force. Soleimani was slain in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in January 2020. Iranian officials vowed revenge for the killing of Mousavi but did not immediately launch a retaliatory strike. The militia attack Monday in northern Iraq was launched prior to the strike in Syria that killed Mousavi. Biden, who was spending Christmas at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was alerted about the attack by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan shortly after it occurred Monday and ordered the Pentagon and his top national security aides to prepare response options to the attack on an air base used by American troops in Irbil.
Sullivan consulted with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Biden's deputy national security adviser, Jon Finer, was with the president at Camp David and convened top aides to review options, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.
Within hours, Biden convened his national security team for a call in which Austin and Gen. CQ Brown, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed Biden on the response options. Biden opted to target three locations used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, the official said.
The U.S. strikes were carried out at about 4:45 a.m. Tuesday in Iraq, less than 13 hours after the U.S. personnel were attacked. According to U.S. Central Command, the retaliatory strikes on the three sites "destroyed the targeted facilities and likely killed a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants.”
"The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way," Watson said. “The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue.”
The latest attack on U.S. troops follows months of escalating threats and actions against American forces in the region since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the devastating war in Gaza.
The dangerous back-and-forth strikes have escalated since Iranian-backed militant groups under the umbrella group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and Syria began striking U.S. facilities Oct. 17, the date that a blast at a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds. Iranian-backed militias have carried out more than 100 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria since the start of the Israel-Hamas war more than two months ago.
In November, U.S. fighter jets struck a Kataib Hezbollah operations center and command and control node, following a short-range ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces at Al-Assad Air Base in western Iraq. Iranian-backed militias also carried out a drone attack at the same air base in October, causing minor injuries. The U.S. has also blamed Iran, which has funded and trained Hamas, for attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants against commercial and military vessels through a critical shipping choke point in the Red Sea.
The Biden administration has sought to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a wider regional conflict that either opens up new fronts of Israeli fighting or draws the U.S. in directly. The administration’s measured response — where not every attempt on American troops has been met with a counterattack — has drawn criticism from Republicans. The U.S. has thousands of troops in Iraq training Iraqi forces and combating remnants of the Islamic State group, and hundreds in Syria, mostly on the counter-IS mission. They have come under dozens of attacks, though as yet none fatal, since the war began on Oct. 7, with the U.S. attributing responsibility to Iran-backed groups. "While we do not seek to escalate conflict in the region, we are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities," Austin said in a statement.
The clashes put the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in a delicate position. He came to power in 2022 with the backing of a coalition of Iranian-backed parties, some of which are associated with the same militias launching the attacks on U.S. bases.
A group of Iranian-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces were key in the fight against Islamic State militants after the extremist group overran much of Iraq in 2014. The PMF is officially under the command of the Iraqi army, but in practice the militias operate independently.
In a statement Tuesday, Sudani condemned both the militia attack in Irbil and the U.S. response. Attacks on “foreign diplomatic mission headquarters and sites hosting military advisors from friendly nations … infringe upon Iraq’s sovereignty and are deemed unacceptable under any circumstances,” the statement said. However, it added that that the retaliatory strikes by the U.S. on “Iraqi military sites” — referring to the militia — “constitute a clear hostile act.” Sudani said some of those injured in the strikes were civilians.

Russia confirms damage to warship in Black Sea
Kathryn Armstrong - BBC News/December 26, 2023
Russia has confirmed one of its warships has been damaged in a Ukrainian attack on a Black Sea port. The airstrike took place at Feodosiya in Russian-occupied Crimea early on Tuesday morning. Russia's Ministry of Defence said the large landing ship Novocherkassk was struck by Ukrainian aircraft carrying guided missiles. The head of the Ukrainian Air Force said earlier its warplanes had destroyed the ship. One person was killed in the attack, according to the Russian-installed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov. Several others were reportedly hurt.
Six buildings were damaged and a small number of people had to be taken to temporary accommodation centres, Mr Aksyonov added. The port's transport operations are said to be functioning as normal after the area was cordoned off, while a fire caused by the attack was contained. Ukraine denies Russian capture of key town near Donetsk Ukraine celebrates first Christmas on 25 December
Footage purportedly showing a huge explosion in the port was shared by Ukrainian air force commander Lt Gen Mykola Oleshchuk. The images have not been independently verified. However, satellite imagery from 24 December shows a ship at port in Feodosiya that appears to be the same length as the Novocherkassk - a landing ship designed to transport troops, weapons and cargo to shore. Meanwhile, a spokesman for Ukraine's air force has denied that Russia shot down two of its Su-24 bombers about 125km (77 miles) from the occupied Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv. It has also recently denied a claim by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu that his troops have seized the key town of Mariinka in eastern Ukraine. The area has been used by Ukraine as a defensive barrier since 2014, when Russian-backed fighters seized large swathes of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Tuesday's attack on Feodosiya is not the first time that the Novocherkassk has been targeted by Ukrainian forces. In March 2022, Ukraine's defence ministry reported that the ship had been damaged in an attack on the occupied Ukrainian port of Berdyansk in which another amphibious assault ship, the Saratov, was sunk. In a post on Telegram, Lt Gen Oleshchuk wrote that the Novocherkassk had gone the way of the Moskva - the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which sank in the Black Sea last year. Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky quipped that he was "grateful" to the country's air force "for the impressive replenishment of the Russian submarine Black Sea fleet with another vessel," in reference to other Russian ships that have been sunk during the war. "The occupiers will not have a single peaceful place in Ukraine," he said.
Russia seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and its forces based there played a key part in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russian forces in Crimea have since come under repeated Ukrainian attack. Last month, Ukraine's military said it had destroyed 15 Russian navy ships and damaged another 12 in the Black Sea since the start of Russia's war. After a missile strike on the headquarters of the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol last September, satellite images showed that the Russian navy had moved much of its Black Sea fleet away from Crimea to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Russia says Ukraine took out one of its warships, capping off an awful year for its Black Sea Fleet. Russia said one of its warships had been damaged during an attack by Ukraine on a Black Sea port. The Novocherkassk ship was struck in Feodosia, killing one person and injuring two, reports said. Russia's Black Sea Fleet has taken numerous hits this year, destabilizing the Russian Navy. Russia has confirmed that one of its warships was damaged in a Ukrainian attack on a Black Sea port. Ukraine used guided missiles to attack the large landing ship Novocherkassk at Feodosiya in Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday morning, the Russian defense ministry said. It follows footage of an explosion posted on Telegram by Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, with the caption: "Russia's fleet is getting smaller and smaller!" "Thanks to the Air Force pilots and everyone involved for the filigree work," wrote Oleshchuk. He urged Russians to leave Crimea "before it's too late." Sergey Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed governor of Crimea, said that one person had been killed and two had been injured in the attack. He added that six buildings had sustained damage and that residents had been temporarily evacuated— six evacuees were placed in temporary accommodation, while the rest are staying with relatives and friends.
The port area is cordoned off, per Aksyonov.
The Novocherkassk was struck by either British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles or French-made SCALP-EGs, Forbes reported. The missiles were reported as being launched from western Ukraine from a Sukhoi Su-24 bomber— Ukraine's only major anti-ship platform. The Novocherkassk was moored off the coast of Gaza in 2012 in an apparent operation to evacuate Russian citizens from Israel if tensions with Palestinians escalated. The Black Sea Fleet took a major hit last year when its flagship guided-missile cruiser Moskva sank two months into the full-scale invasion. In October, Business Insider's Mia Jankowicz reported that Russia had "lost its control" over the Black Sea as its navy moved to safer ports. Basil Germond, a maritime security expert, said at the time that Ukraine's ability to target Russian warships with long-range missiles posed a "significant problem" for Russia. The Institute for the Study of War said Ukraine's repeated strikes on Moscow's Black Sea Fleet were successfully "degrading" the Russian Navy. In September, a Ukrainian missile hit the Russian Black Sea Fleet's headquarters in Crimea, just weeks after Ukrainian strikes hit a Russian submarine and landing craft on the annexed peninsula.

Azerbaijan expels two French diplomats
RFI/Tue, December 26, 2023
Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said Tuesday that two French diplomats had been ordered to leave over actions "incompatible with their diplomatic status." The ministry said in a statement it had summoned French ambassador Anne Boillon to express a "strong protest for the actions of two employees of the French Embassy that were incompatible with their diplomatic status and which contradicted the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. "It was brought to the attention of the French Ambassador that they were declared "personae-non-gratae" (undesirable persons) by the Government of Azerbaijan," according to the statement, which was published in English at the website of Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry. Without providing further details, it said the two had been declared personae non gratae and ordered to leave the country within 48 hours. The move came amid tense relations between the countries as Baku has accused France of being biased towards Armenia during European-mediated peace talks with its arch-foe. In November, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev accused France of inciting conflicts in the Caucasus by arming Armenia. Paris agrees to deliver military equipment to Armenia
Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought two wars over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Baku reclaimed the enclave in September after a lightning offensive against Armenian separatists who had controlled it for three decades.
(With newswires)

Bodies of Kuwaiti and Saudi missing in Iraq have been found
DUBAI (Reuters)/December 26, 2023
Iraqi authorities on Tuesday found the bodies of a Kuwaiti and a Saudi national resident in Kuwait who had gone missing while on a hunting trip in a desert area of Iraq. An Iraqi military statement said the bodies were found after their vehicle was struck by an unexploded bomb left from the war against Islamic State militants. On Monday, Iraqi security sources said they had launched a search operation for two Kuwaitis who were kidnapped in the desert. A senior security official said the initial investigation suggested that unknown gunmen tried to kidnap the hunters. The circumstances of the explosion and whether the two were in the hands of kidnappers when it occurred was not clear. The military said it was still investigating the matter. The initial details received by Iraqi authorities showed that both hunters were Kuwaiti nationals but after further checks with security forces it appeared that one national was Kuwaiti and the other was Saudi, the source said. Kuwait's foreign ministry also said the bodies of the missing Kuwaiti and his Saudi companion who disappeared in Iraq's western Anbar province had been found. It gave no further details. The desert region is known to be a hiding place for Islamic State militants who are still active, Iraqi security sources told Reuters.Kuwaiti foreign minister Sheikh Salem Abdul Al-Jaber Al-Sabah praised the Iraqi authorities for their efforts and said they were in contact to investigate the case further.

Explosions off Egypt's south Sinai coast
Associated Press/December 26, 2023
Explosions were heard off the coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, state-linked media said, with witnesses reporting that they saw something fall into the Gulf of Aqaba. Al Qahera News television, which has links to state intelligence, said the blasts occurred about two kilometers from the Egyptian seaside town of Dahab. "We heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of the sea, and then we saw a strange object falling into the water," an eyewitness told AFP. No casualties have been reported. Dahab lies around 125 kilometers south of Eilat on the southern tip of Israel, which has been waging a deadly war with Hamas militants in Gaza for more than 11 weeks. Flying objects have been repeatedly downed near south Sinai, with the Egyptian military at times pointing to "drones coming from the south of the Red Sea". Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched a flurry of attempted drone and missile attacks towards Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7. Most have failed to reach their targets and are often intercepted. The Houthis say the strikes are in solidarity with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, where the health ministry says more than 20,900 people have been killed in the conflict. Israel declared war on Hamas after militants from the Palestinian Islamist group streamed across Gaza's border with Israel on October 7 and killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israel figures. In late October, six people were wounded in Egypt when two drones came down in Taba, which borders Israel. The Egyptian air force earlier this month shot down a drone that had been detected over Egypt's territorial waters, also near Dahab, though a security source said the origin of the drone was "unknown".

Russian opposition leader Navalny resurfaces with darkly humorous comments
Associated Press/December 26, 2023
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday released a sardonic statement about his transfer to a Arctic prison colony nicknamed the "Polar Wolf," his first appearance since associates lost contact with him three weeks ago. Navalny, the most prominent and persistent domestic foe of President Vladimir Putin, is serving a 19-year sentence on an extremism conviction. He had been incarcerated in central Russia's Vladimir region, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of Moscow, but supporters said he couldn't be found beginning on Dec. 6. They said Monday that he had been traced to a prison colony infamous for severe conditions in the Yamalo-Nenets region, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow. "I am your new Santa Claus," Navalny said in a tweet, referring to his location above the Arctic Circle in the prison in the town of Kharp. The region is notorious for long and severe winters. The town is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coal mines were among the harshest of the Soviet Gulag prison-camp system. Navalny, who is noted for sharply humorous comments, said he was in a good mood after being transported to the new prison, but suggested the northern winter darkness is discouraging: "I don't say 'Ho-ho-ho,' but I do say 'Oh-oh-oh' when I look out of the window, where I can see night, then the evening, and then the night again." Prisoner transfers in Russia often result in contact with inmates being lost for weeks. Navalny's supporters contend the transfer was arranged to keep Navalny out of sight amid Putin's announcement that he will run for another term as president in the March election. Navalny has been behind bars in Russia since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Before his arrest, he campaigned against official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests. He has since received three prison terms and spent months in isolation in Penal Colony No. 6 for alleged minor infractions. He has rejected all charges against him as politically motivated.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 26-27/2023
Dilemmas of Truce and the Unfinished War
معضلات الهدنة والحرب غير المنتهية
Charles Elias Chartouni/This is Beirut/December 26/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125516/125516/
The moral and strategic equivocations of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, far from being incidental, are inherent to the political narrative and the military purview that underlie the massacres of October 7, 2023. The nihilistic attack reflects Hamas’s political vision and concurs with the strategic objectives of Iranian power politics: the destruction of the State of Israel. Hamas and Palestinian extremists were vocal in their opposition to the Oslo Accords when they initiated waves of terrorist attacks that targeted civilians throughout Israel, refused to acknowledge the nascent Palestinian national authority and fought against it, rallied the Islamist ideological mainstream and redefined their struggle upon its assumptions.
The elective relationship between Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Iranian regime, despite its pitfalls, was predicated on Islamism and joint strategic interests. The goriness of the South Israel attack was based on the idea of a stalemated political horizon, the total war scheme, the instrumentalization of the deepening fractures of the world order, the disruption of the normalization dynamics elicited by the US-Saudi negotiations and the completion of the Abraham Accords. We are definitely in a well-entrenched conflict dynamic that extends between past and future, running along the ideological and strategic fault lines of the emerging world order and its regional inflections.
The nihilistic bent of this war accounts for its moral ambiguities and their attending strategic consequences. The pogrom in South Israel was meant to create an open-ended state of war, drag Israel into the Gaza urban war and instrument the human shield strategy and the subterranean war galleries, while cynically dismissing their devastating impact on the civilians living in such a dense and overpopulated environment. This strategic perspective was inherently malevolent and meant to be so, to elicit international endorsements, restructure leftist-wokeism around Palestinian militancy, crystallize the strategic divides of the new Cold War era, resuscitate antisemitism, reactivate dissensions among Jews within Israel and worldwide and exploit the growing disarrays of international governance and its normative breakdowns.
The brunt of overlapping conflicts is highlighted through the proliferation of international wars (Ukraine), virtual wars (South China Sea), and dormant wars (Syria, Libya, Sudan, Yemen), the volatility of the West Bank, ramshackle Syria and lame Lebanon, the Iranian destabilization strategy spreading throughout the Near East, the alliance between leftist movements in Western democracies and the late Muslim migration trends manipulating this conflict to further their respective agendas.
These calculations have generated major backlash within Western democracies that demonstrated adamant support for Israel insofar as its right to self-defense while advocating for the strict implementation of just war theory* (ad Bellum, in Bello, post-Bellum, rules of engagement, operational thresholds, civilian immunity, collateral damage, proportionality, management of truce …). The operational obfuscations and breakdowns caused by an asymmetric war, normative discrepancies and retributive war conduct have led to a full-fledged war process which obviated the usual fallback on limited reprisals and mandated total war as an inevitable recourse to defeat Hamas, engage Hezbollah and confront Iran.
The humanitarian tragedies caused by the evolution of a war of necessity and its rules of engagement are counter-weighed by the severity of human casualties, the magnitude of urban destruction, the tragic deterioration of life conditions and the dramatic issue of Israeli hostages. The claim for an unconditional truce is a hypocritical proposal that omits the gravity of the casus belli, devalues the critical strategic and security issues of Israel, dismisses the inevitability of future wars and continued terror and ignores the strident ideological polarization and rise to the extremes on both sides. The need for intermittent truce, humanitarian pauses, exchange of prisoners and hostages and management of relief are urgently requested but can never substitute war injunctions unless one of the parties concedes defeat and capitulates.
These are basic observations that apply to war conduct and its contextual constraints. One can hardly see Israel swayed by the declaration of total war, cowed by marauding terrorism and coexisting with hovering Iranian terrorism and its regional proxies. The conflicting mandates of ethics and military strategy, the clash of extremisms and the demise of political moderation are givens that should be reckoned with when international mediators engage the intricacies of the ongoing conflict and strive for conflict resolution. Peace proposals are self-fulfilling prophecies when they fail to understand conflict issues and dynamics. Nonetheless, the post-Bellum imperatives cannot be overlooked if the search for security does not override the precepts of peace-making and justice. The balancing acts are not easily achievable but should always be kept in sight if actors are ready to make the ultimate leap of faith that the search for peace earnestly enjoins.
*Charles Chartouni, Just War Theory and the Problem of Terrorism, Essay in Politics, Ethics and Strategy, in Communautés et sociétés, Annales de sociologie et d’anthropologie, volume 16-17, 2005-2006/ 2009- FLSH, Saint-Joseph University, Beirut.

How UNWRA Grooms Terrorists
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./December 26, 2023
By providing the residents of the Gaza Strip with various services, UNRWA exempted Hamas from its responsibilities as the governing body, such as creating a working economy that would pay for education and healthcare, and allowed it, instead, to invest resources in building tunnels and manufacturing weapons.
"They [UNRWA] teach us that the Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to us [Muslims], that Palestine belongs to us," said Atif Sharha, a student at an UNRWA school.
"Yes, they teach us that the Zionists are our enemy," said Nur Taha, a third-year student from Kalandia. "We should carry out an [terror] operation against them [Zionists]."
"The Palestinian matriculation exams [at UNRWA] have become a finishing school in extremism. It is as if the Palestinian Authority is cramming as much hate into the tests as possible, to ensure the twelve previous years of indoctrination stay with them into adulthood." — Marcus Sheff, CEO at the Institute for Cultural Peace and Tolerance in School Education, i24news.tv, July 23, 2023.
Despite years of considerable condemnation of the textbooks, newly produced editions, approved by UNRWA, are exponentially worse....
Whatever hopes that anyone may have held for the trustworthiness of UNRWA have long expired, and were arguably misplaced at the outset. UNRWA, in its current state, has proven itself irremediably defective, unworkable and yet another massive stain on the already scandalously stained UN.
It is high time for the international community and those who actually want a better future for the Palestinians to liquidate UNRWA and take actions that truly help the Palestinians move forward to a golden life.
More than 50% of UNRWA's annual budget of $1.6 billion is dedicated to funding Palestinian schools. These schools have been fostering war-mongering hatred against Israel, and against Jews in general, while predictably churning out their final product: terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Pictured: A still shot from the documentary film "Camp Jihad," featuring a summer camp in Gaza sponsored and funded by UNWRA. (Image source: Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research)
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was originally a small agency mandated to provide basic humanitarian relief for Palestinians, including a vote for renewal every three years. Seventy-three years and four generations later, and with more than 30,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $1 billion, it has astonishingly become one of the largest UN agencies.
In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, UNWRA has, in fact, long been operating as the de facto government. By providing the residents of the Gaza Strip with various services, UNRWA exempted Hamas from its responsibilities as the governing body, such as creating a working economy that would pay for education and healthcare, and allowed it, instead, to invest resources in building tunnels and manufacturing weapons. If UNRWA were not there, Hamas would have been forced to fill the vacuum and, for example, build hospitals and schools and find solutions to economic hardship, including unemployment and poverty.
As senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said, in explaining why no cement could be spared from terror tunnels to build bomb shelters for Gazan citizens:
"The tunnels were built to protect the fighters of Hamas from [Israeli] airstrikes. As you know, 75% of the residents of the Gaza Strip are refugees. It is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect the refugees."
Hamas was effectively saying: We are responsible for what happens underground, while UNRWA is responsible for what happens above ground.
In addition to evolving into a monster-sized agency, UNRWA has also morphed into a very costly incubator for terror. UNRWA-run schools emphasize and promote the "right of return," a euphemism for flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians and turning it into a Muslim-majority Islamist state backed by Iran.
More than 50% of UNRWA's annual budget of $1.6 billion is dedicated to funding Palestinian schools. These schools have been fostering war-mongering hatred against Israel, and against Jews in general, from the youngest, most impressionable ages and onward throughout the school years, while predictably churning out their final product: terrorists and terrorist sympathizers.
"They [UNRWA] teach us that the Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to us [Muslims], that Palestine belongs to us," said Atif Sharha, a student at a UNRWA school in the Shuafat refugee camp, north of Jerusalem.
"I hate the Jews," said Yousef, another student at a UNRWA school in Kalandia refugee camp, south of Ramallah.
"Yes, they teach us that the Zionists are our enemy," said Nur Taha, a third student from Kalandia. "We should carry out an [terror] operation against them [Zionists]."
Marcus Sheff, Chief Executive Officer at The Institute for Cultural Peace and Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) studying these hate-policies, laments:
"The Palestinian matriculation exams have become a finishing school in extremism. It is as if the Palestinian Authority is cramming as much hate into the tests as possible, to ensure the twelve previous years of indoctrination stay with them into adulthood."
UNRWA then re-inserts many of these hate-infused people right back into its institutions, perpetuating what the UN is keen on blaming Israel for: "the cycle of violence."
UNRWA schools have been the focus of media scrutiny on many occasions. UNRWA's textbooks, compiled by the Palestinian Authority, have been blasted for showy, hate-provoking and terror-inciting material such as "a grammar exercise that encourages Palestinians to 'sacrifice their blood to liberate Jerusalem.'"
Palestinian textbooks produced by UNRWA contain "antisemitic, hateful, and violent passages," according to IMPACT-se. Some of these passages in an Islamic education drill include labeling Jews as inherently treacherous. A poem included in the educational content glorifies the killing of Israelis, and portrays dying as martyrs by killing Israelis as a "hobby."
In a grammar exercise, Jews, it is implied, are impure and supposedly defile the Al-Aqsa Mosque. (They do not. The Jews peacefully tour the exterior grounds, called The Temple Mount, a plateau on which the Al Aqsa mosque now sits. The site is the third-holiest in Islam, but in Judaism the holiest. The plateau is where two Jewish Temples once stood, mentioned in the Bible, before they were destroyed -- the first by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE; the second by the Roman Empire in 70 CE).
Despite years of considerable condemnation of the textbooks, newly produced editions, approved by UNRWA, are exponentially worse.
"Terrorist activities against Israeli civilians are also part of the struggle against the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Thus, the new books exalt Palestinian terrorists who participated in such actions. Dalal al-Mughrabi, for example, who was killed in a terrorist attack she had led against a civilian bus... in which more than 30 men, women and children were murdered, is mentioned in four books, all studied in UNRWA schools at present. In all of them she is described as a heroine and martyr of Palestine."
According to the textbooks used in UNRWA schools, Jews have no rights whatsoever or any legitimate status in Israel. A Jewish presence in the country is denied historically, geographically and religiously. No reference is made in the books to the history of the Jews throughout the region, either in Biblical or Roman times. Any connection is also denied of the Jews to their ancient capital, Jerusalem, which is presented as an Arab city since its establishment thousands of years ago. The Jews' presence in Jerusalem today is bewilderingly presented in the books as an aggression against the city's Arab character.
Beyond the textbooks, both UNRWA administrators and teachers have proudly displayed their approval of terrorism and hatred on countless occasions, including Hamas's recent October 7 massacre, according to a report published by UN Watch, an independent non-governmental human rights organization, as well as IMPACT-se.
UNRWA math teacher Adnan Shteiwi, for instance, glorified Diaa Hamarsheh, the perpetrator of the March 2022 Bnei Brak shooting attack -- in which he murdered four Israeli civilians and one policeman -- as a "martyr" whose name should "forever remain in letters of fire, might, and magnificence."
UNRWA's Asma Middle School for Girls B encouraged schoolgirls to " liberate the homeland by sacrificing 'their Blood' and pursuing jihad."
Roni Krivoi, one of the Israeli hostages recently freed from Hamas captivity, reported that he had been kept prisoner in an attic for more than a month and a half, mostly starved and medically untreated. His jailer was an UNRWA teacher.
In Gaza -- as with Ahmad Kahalot, Director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, who admitted that he was the equivalent of a brigadier general for Hamas and that 16 of the hospital's staff were also "terror operatives for Hamas" -- the mesh of Hamas and UNRWA is also illustrated in the high-profile case of Dr. Suhail al-Hindi.
Al-Hindi served as both the principal of an UNRWA elementary school and as the chairman of the UNRWA employee's union in Gaza. In 2017, UNRWA suspended al-Hindi after it received information that he had just been elected to the Hamas political bureau. UNRWA announced that al-Hindi no longer worked for the agency, but did not say whether he had resigned or been fired. Al-Hindi first said he "resigned" from UNRWA, but later clarified that he was taking early retirement.
The case of al-Hindi and other UNRWA employees suspected of supporting terrorism makes the point that UNRWA is "the money," while thug terror-groups such as Hamas are "the muscle."
UNRWA tries to keep up public pretense that its hands are clean, and has taken a belligerently defensive stance against these and other accusations, as it publicly claims that it has a "zero-tolerance policy for hatred."
The Israeli news site Ynet , however, wrote recently about a UN Watch report:
"In it, some 47 documented cases of school staff promoting antisemitic material are recorded, as school staff openly violates the official UNRWA policy...
"It was only two years ago that UNRWA apologized for similar instances, claiming they were done erroneously and will not occur in the future, but with this latest report, that promise rings hollow."
One UNRWA employee portrayed Adolf Hitler in a favorable light: "Wake up Hitler, there are people left to burn."
In addition, as is well-documented, UNRWA has allowed its school buildings to be used by Hamas as storehouses for rocket and other weapons, terror tunnels, and to shelter jihadi terrorists. Hamas and other terror organizations have bet on the media frenzy that would ensue if Israeli forces strike a UN institution (or hospital, mosque, or even a church) that is being used for military purposes. Hamas has been launching rockets at Israel from alongside UNRWA schools, and, when possible, shooting from inside the schools, thereby taking advantage of the sanctuary that a UN institution, especially a "protected space" such as a school, ought to offer under legitimate circumstances.
Last week saw the media explode in condemnation of the Israel Defense Forces for blowing up an UNRWA school, despite the disclosure that the school had been used as a weapons depot and terror tunnels were found in its area.
UNRWA kindergartens have been discovered with weapons hidden inside toys or even in UNRWA bags, and UN officials are charged with being complicit in holding hostages, despite protestations to the contrary. It seems that "zero tolerance" had devolved into "zero oversight."
When rockets were discovered in UNRWA schools in the past, UNRWA would reassure everyone that they had been turned over to "local authorities." Those authorities, of course, were Hamas, who most likely relocated them to another equally inappropriate location.
Occasionally, UNRWA officials will make a minor fuss or put on a shocked and affronted façade for donors or the media, but reportedly do nothing in the way of changing the practice. In the upper echelons of UNRWA management, there have been accusations of serious breaches of ethics in the forms of nepotism, bullying, mismanagement of funds — as well as lack of accountability.
This is no small matter, considering that in 2022, annual worldwide contributions to UNRWA alone -- not including direct donations to Palestinian governing agencies such as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, nor to the many NGOs and other Palestinian-specific aid agencies -- from 68 donor nations, including the Holy See, was $1.1 billion.
Extensive reports released by UN Watch and IMPACT-se have highlighted the malignant influence of terror organizations such as Hamas, Fatah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on UNRWA institutions that either feign ignorance or offer enthusiastic complicity. The repercussions of these revelations are becoming an embarrassment. Switzerland's Parliament recently voted to stop funding UNRWA ($21 million annually), labelled Hamas a terrorist organization and unanimously banned it. "Hamas' brutal terrorist attacks against Israel necessitate a clear position from Switzerland," they said.
In 2018, the Trump administration, calling UNRWA an "irredeemably flawed operation," completely cut America's $300 million annual donation. The aid was reinstated by President Joe Biden almost immediately after he took office.
Many have called the very inception of UNRWA into question, as the UN already has an agency specifically designated for refugees: the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
UNRWA remains a refugee organization distinctly apart from UNHCR based upon two premises: first, that the Palestinians will "return" to their homes in Israel by means of a the "right of return"; and second, that there will never be a resolution not to "return," thereby making these refugees an eternal stick in the eye to Israel. The first premise would effectively destroy Israel by imposing a demographic shift: flooding millions of Palestinians, demonstrably none too peace-oriented, into Israel.
The second premise would, and has been, effectively enslaving Palestinians as the crying faces that keep the international "pity-cash" flowing into the coffers of both Palestinian and UNRWA leadership.
Perhaps this may be at least one answer as to why, when UNRWA recently cried for more aid money for Palestinians, the organization was found to have an entire warehouse "filled to the brim" with food. When Gazans stormed the warehouse in October, they discovered copious amounts of rice, lentils, flour and oil.Whatever hopes that anyone may have held for the trustworthiness of UNRWA have long expired, and were arguably misplaced at the outset. UNRWA, in its current state, has proven itself irremediably defective, unworkable and yet another massive stain on the already scandalously stained UN [such as here, here, here, here and here.] The agency has perpetuated the issue of the "refugees" by keeping them in camps while providing them with basic services, only.
Worse, UNRWA has deliberately created new generations of "refugees" by insisting that the descendants of refugees inherit the status of "refugee" – which on its face is nonsense. It is high time for the international community and those who actually want a better future for the Palestinians to liquidate UNRWA and take actions that truly help the Palestinians move forward to a golden life.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

If We Like, We Will Kill You, Too’: The Persecution of Christians, November 2023
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/December 26, 2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125472/125472/
A few November headlines from the ongoing jihadist-genocide of Christians in Nigeria follow…
Coptic Christians suffer the double injustice of living under systematic discrimination by the Egyptian government, and also from regular members of Egyptian society who attack Copts and their property with impunity. The reality for Copts in Egypt is one of life as second-class citizens.
“Most of the native population converted to Islam over six centuries to escape the jizya [protection tax] and humiliations of dhimmi status. The term ‘Copt’ came to define the native Christian population that had not converted to Islam…” — Coptic Solidarity, a human rights organization, in a report titled, “Advocacy of Hatred Based on Religion or Belief.”
On November 23, a Muslim man of Algerian origin stabbed a group of preschool children attending Saint Mary’s Catholic primary school in Dublin, as the children were leaving school. Three children — two girls and a boy aged between 5 and 6 — and a care assistant who tried to defend them, were stabbed in the assault. In response to the stabbing, angry Irish citizens took to the streets and rioted (pictured) that evening. (Photo by Peter Murphy/AFP via Getty Images)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of November 2023.
The Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Pakistan: A Muslim man murdered a young Christian because he was “driven by a strong hatred for Christians and Jews.” On Nov. 9, around 3 a.m., Muhammad Zubair broke into a Christian household while everyone was asleep. After opening fire on Farhan Qamar, 20, the youngest of four siblings, the intruder held the entire family hostage at gunpoint for nearly 40 minutes, preventing them from going near the fatally injured youth. According to the slain man’s father, Ul Qamar:
“My son was struggling for his life, bleeding profusely from the bullet wounds, but his murderer, Muhammad Zubair, did not allow us to even give him some water, let alone comfort him. He repeatedly called us ‘Jews’ as he cursed and waved his weapon at us. We all watched helplessly, pleading with him to leave, but he wouldn’t go…. [Finally, before Muhammad left the murder scene, he] pointed the gun towards my wife and ordered her to unlock the main gate. He sat on his motorcycle that was parked outside, fired three shots in the air with his pistol, and shouted, ‘Allahu Akbar [‘Allah is greatest’] two-three times before speeding away.”
Once Muhammad left, the family gathered around their blood-soaked son and brother and started crying for help, but “None of our neighbors intervened even after they heard the first three shots fired on Farhan by Zubair.” Farhan died on the way to the hospital; doctors confirmed that had he been brought to them even a few minutes earlier, they could have saved him. According to the report:
“[Muhammad] Zubair had never hidden his hatred for Christians, but his behavior worsened after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted into war in Gaza last month… Several Christian families fled the village after Muslims beat two Christian brothers, Aqib Javed and Asher Javed, for reportedly expressing support for Israel.”
When the murder was first reported, the family withheld the religious element because the father said they “feared backlash from local Muslims”:
“We have been keeping quiet because we did not want the religious leaders to think that we are giving our son’s murder a ‘religious color,’ but this is the truth… We want to see Farhan’s killer punished in accordance with the law. If we are unable to find good legal representation, I fear the murderer will be let off, and then no Christian will be safe in this village. Please help us.”
Mozambique: Muslim terrorists raided a Christian village in the terrorism-plagued Cabo Delgado region, and killed four. The Islamic State later took credit for the attack. According to one report:
“Through propaganda channels, the group assumed that the attack on the ‘Christian village’ took place on Friday November 10, using machine guns by ‘soldiers of the caliphate.’ The attack took place during a ceremony in preparation for a female initiation ritual that was scheduled for Sunday November 12, with the terrorists entering the camp, firing bursts of gunfire.”
Nigeria: A few November headlines from the ongoing jihadist-genocide of Christians in the African nation follow:
At Least 10 Christians Slain in Taraba State
Kidnapped Pastor Killed in Nigeria after Ransom Payment
Terrorists Kill Christian, Kidnap 25 Others in Northern Nigeria
Pastor Slain, Wife Kidnapped in Kaduna State
Pastor’s Wife Shot Dead in Taraba State
General Muslim Violence and Hostility against Christians
Ireland: On Nov. 23, a Muslim man of Algerian origin stabbed a group of preschool children attending Saint Mary’s, a private Catholic primary school in Dublin, as the children were leaving school around 1:30 pm. Three children — two girls and a boy aged between 5 and 6 — and a care assistant who tried to defend them, were stabbed in the assault. Stabbed near the heart, a 5-year-old girl was critically injured and, as of the last reporting from December, remains hospitalized in critical condition. According to one report:
“The motivation behind the attack remains unclear; however, considering the assailant’s background and the specific target being children leaving from a well-known Irish Catholic primary school, an anti-Christian motive seems not unlikely.”
Although the Algerian attacker had a prior criminal record, his order of deportation was revoked and in 2014 he was granted Irish citizenship. In response to the stabbing, angry Irish citizens took to the streets and rioted that evening.
Greece: On Nov. 11 in the town of Colonos, a 38-year-old Muslim man of Afghan origin knifed a 56-year-old Egyptian because the Egyptian had converted to Christianity. He was stabbed in the head and in one of his hands. He told police, who arrived on the scene and arrested the Afghan, that he was attacked “because he was a Muslim and was baptized a Christian.”
Nigeria: “Islamic police (Hisbah) responsible for enforcing Sharia law in northwest Nigeria,” a Nov. 24 report relates, “recently harassed, and stopped five Christian girls from going to church in Kano State”:
“The Christian girls were walking to Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) when Hisbah Police stopped the girls and asked them to dress like Muslims. When the girls refused, one of the officers told them they would be punished if they went to the church. The girls were released after standing in the sun for three hours, and after the church service ended.”
One of the five girls, Mary, said that the Muslim officers told them that they were being targeted because “Israel is killing our sisters in Gaza. If we like, we will kill you, too.”
Uganda: A Muslim man set his wife on fire for becoming Christian. Although Hajara Namwase, a 32-year-old mother of three children, had embraced Christ back in May, she kept it secret from her husband, Musa Kalele, 42. On Oct. 17, however, he returned unexpectedly from South Sudan, while she was still away at church. She rushed home. “I got scared upon seeing him,” Namwase said “because I had some gospel tracts and a small New Testament Bible which I could not hide.” On seeing the Christian items, her husband
“became furious, left the room and returned with a container of gas… He took some bedsheets, covered them around my body and then removed me out of the house. He forced me to lie down. He took the petrol, then poured it on me and thereafter took a matchbox, lit it, and the fire began burning me up.”
Her daughter alerted neighbors who managed to rescue and take her to a hospital. Her husband has since fled to South Sudan. According to the report:
“Namwase said she is worried about where she will stay after her release [from hospital], as all her relatives are Muslims, and what will become of her children, ages 4, 6 and 9, who have come under the care of their paternal grandmother. Still hospitalized in Kampala, Namwase has third-degree burns on much of her body, with nerve damage and multiple red spots on her skin…”
Separately, in Uganda, on Nov. 13, a gang of Muslims severely beat two Christians, after their presentation during an interfaith debate between Muslims and Christians held at a church. During their presentation, the two Christians, Musa, 32, and Swidiki, 27, quoted from both the Bible and the Koran to argue that Muhammad was a false prophet and that Christ was the truth. Before they had even finished, Muslims forced the Christians to flee to a nearby Christian’s house. Two hours later, when the coast seemed clear, the two Christians emerged from hiding and began returning home on a motorcycle. Before long, a group of Muslims emerged from the darkness and stopped them. According to Swidiki, the Muslims began yelling:
“Allah Akbar, these are the enemies of our prophet, Muhammad, as well as our religion. Kafir [Infidels]! Kafir!”
The Muslims broke their motorcycle “to pieces and tore up” their Bibles and other Christian literature.
“Thereafter they started beating us badly with blunt objects that led to the fracturing of Musa’s right leg. Two of the attackers held me tightly and beat me with sticks as four others were beating Musa and stepping on him while he was lying down in the middle of the road.”
Before the beating had reached a lethal level, a taxi arrived; its flashing headlights prompted the terrorists to flee. Christians, including a pastor who recognized one of the men, rushed them to a hospital.
Egypt: On Nov. 6, Coptic Solidarity, a human rights organization based in Washington, D.C., submitted a report to Ms. Nazila Ghanea, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Titled, “Advocacy of Hatred Based on Religion or Belief,” it traces the history and origin of the hatred and discrimination for Egypt’s indigenous Christians, the Copts, and how this hatred has even made its way into Egypt’s Constitution and classrooms:
“The status of Egypt’s indigenous Copts has been one of subservience and systematic discrimination for centuries. Copts suffer the double injustice of living under systematic discrimination by the Egyptian government, and also from regular members of Egyptian society who attack Copts and their properties with impunity. The reality for Copts in Egypt is one of life as second-class citizens.
“The Coptic people are an ethnoreligious population that identifies as the descendants of ancient Egyptians and civilization. Since the Arab invasion in mid seventh century, rulers have treated the Coptic population with various degrees of discrimination and persecution that ranged from radical increase in taxes to full-scale massacres. Most of the native population converted to Islam over six centuries to escape the jizya [protection tax] and humiliations of dhimmi status. The term ‘Copt’ came to define the native Christian population that had not converted to Islam….
“The primary vehicle for instilling hatred based in legal and policy frameworks that results in intolerance, discrimination, and violence based on religion is through the establishment of religion. In Egypt, the Constitution includes articles guaranteeing freedom of religion and criminalizing discrimination based on religion. Yet, the second article of the Constitution states that ‘Islam is the religion of the state…and the principles of Islamic shari’a are the main sources of legislation.’
“These statements are antithetical since shari’a repudiates religious freedom. Additionally, it is founded on non-equality—the superiority of the Believer (a Muslim) over a Non-believer (and also the superiority of men over women), and it actually proscribes discrimination and persecution of minority faiths. All the constitutional articles are to be interpreted in light of and in submission to Article 2. In short, the Egyptian government cannot implement contradictory principles…. [Even] Egypt’s educational curricula and schooling system are permeated with discriminatory teachings.”
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
Austria: On Friday, Nov. 24, a 29-year-old Muslim refugee of Syrian background wreaked havoc inside Kepler Church in Vienna and violently tearing a Madonna statue from its anchorage. According to one report:
“The refugee also took a wooden cross from the church. Through witness statements and analysis of video surveillance, the migrant was found in the immediate vicinity of the church and temporarily arrested. He was released on the orders of the Vienna public prosecutor’s office. The stolen wooden cross was brought back to the church by a woman. According to police, there is uncertainty about the Syrian’s motive, but they can supposedly rule out a political or religious motive.”
Two days later, on Sunday, Nov. 26, the same Muslim man (though most reports fail to make this connection) disrupted mass inside Vienna’s most celebrated place of worship, Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. He repeatedly shouted and jumped over the barrier surrounding the main altar. The following day, Nov. 27, he returned to the cathedral. After he was discovered by two security guards, the Muslim “went crazy and threatened to slit the two employees’ throats with a screwdriver…”
According to another report:
“After one of the two called the police, the 29-year-old fled. Police arrested the man on Stephansplatz and confiscated the screwdriver. The motive is still unclear. An interrogation has not yet been possible due to the accused’s aggressive behavior. He was taken to a prison by order of the Vienna public prosecutor’s office.”
Germany: On Nov. 27, “unknown persons” vandalized the Saint John Basilica in Saarbrücken. Among other acts of desecration, they severed one of the hands of a large Mary statue, and decapitated the baby Jesus held to her bosom. They also damaged the altar and destroyed two of its large candles. The beloved statues are approximately 300 years old. After confirming that, “The figure of Mary was badly damaged, the head of baby Jesus was cut off,” the cantor of the basilica, Bernhard Leonardy, said he was “completely shocked at how people could come up with such thoughts,” adding “This is not normal vandalism, but also has a very special symbolic meaning.”
Koran 8:12 comes to mind:
“I [Allah] will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off their fingertips.”
According to the report:
“Many were horrified in comments on the post [by the cantor]: ‘Unbelievable …,’ ‘That leaves me speechless!’ or ‘Who does something like that? I can’t understand that!'”
Separately, in Germany, two teenage Muslims, aged 15 and 16, were arrested before launching a massive terror attack designed to “set fire to the infidels at the Christmas market.” According to one report,
“In a video published on Telegram, two young people are said to have called for a ‘holy war’ against the West and at the same time announced a terrorist attack in Germany for December 1st…. The young people are said to have arranged to meet to discuss an Islamist attack. Accordingly, they wanted to use incendiary devices or a small truck to attack a Christmas market or a synagogue in Cologne. They are also believed to have discussed a specific date for their plans… Both young people are considered sympathizers of the ‘Islamic State’ (IS). The older man is classified by the security authorities in Brandenburg as a ‘relevant person’ in the Islamist scene and is said to have attracted attention in the past by spreading jihadist propaganda.”
France: On Sunday, Nov. 5, a Muslim man disrupted mass in Dunkirk’s Saint Éloi Church by twice shouting “Allahu akbar” (“Allah is greatest”), once during the Lord’s Prayer and once at the end of mass. The priest said the Muslim seemed “disturbed.”
Italy: A young Muslim man, identified as a Moroccan, appeared in a surveillance video inside a church, as he was kicking down and stomping on large crucifixes. In the words of Radio Genoa, which published the video on Nov.10, “Moroccan Muslim destroys 3 crucifixes in a church in Italy and threatens police officers. They hate us.” Earlier, on Nov. 4, a fire was started at the Church of Santa Maria in Vado. Although the arsonist was captured, no information about his or her identity was released.
Switzerland: Muslim migrants appropriated the Saint Laurent Church in Lausanne for their own use, including as a toilet. “Churches must remain open to everyone, but a minimum [level] of respect is required,” responded the Christian caretaker. “If you behaved like this in a mosque,” he added, “they would throw you out—and rightfully so.”
Armenia/Azerbaijan: According to a Nov. 10 report:
“Azerbaijan demolished an Armenian church in Nagorno-Karabakh, thereby violating the interim decision of the International Court of Justice…”
Sudan: At least two Christian buildings were bombed and severely damaged amid fighting between rival military factions of the Muslim nation. First on Nov. 1, a Presbyterian Evangelical Church in Omdurman “came under heavy shelling from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) at about 9 p.m. that left its worship structure in ruins.” Although several people were in the church, which includes an orphanage, no one was hurt. Most of the church structure was devastated from the three strikes it suffered, and “everything inside was destroyed, including Bibles and hymnbooks.” Two days later, on Nov. 3, a Roman Catholic mission house in Khartoum was also bombed. A nun, as well as a mother and her two children, ages 4 and 7, were injured in the blast. Although these strikes are connected to the fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which began in April, it appears that Christian sites are intentionally being targeted in the chaos of war. According to the report:
“Christian sites have been targeted since the conflict began in April. On May 14 unidentified gunmen attacked the Coptic Orthodox Church of Mar Girgis (St. George) in the Masalma area of Omdurman… The RSF on May 15 seized a central Khartoum cathedral after having evacuated the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary near the presidential palace on May 14, converting the latter into a military headquarters… RSF had reportedly been intimidating and harassing those in the church for a week before forcing them to leave. The RSF reportedly stormed buildings of the Episcopal church on Khartoum’s First Street on May 16 to use as a strategic base … [and] a vehicle belonging to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Khartoum was stolen at gunpoint. On May 3, a Coptic Church in Khartoum North (Bahri) was attacked, after the Evangelical Church in the same area was bombed and partially burned in April…On April 28, the Gerief Bible School in the Gerief West area of Khartoum was bombed. Its worship auditorium, halls and student dorms were destroyed… On April 17, gunmen raided the compound of the Anglican cathedral in Khartoum…”
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location. It includes incidents that take place during, or are reported on, any given month.
*Follow Raymond Ibrahim on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20242/persecution-of-christians-november

Israel-haters aren’t refighting the Vietnam War
Jonathan S. Tobin/JNS/December 26, 2023
Today’s antisemites are modeling their campaign on 1960s protesters, even though the two conflicts are very different. Still, the same toxic ideology influenced radicals of both eras.
Many Americans are baffled by the mobs on college campuses and the streets of major U.S. cities chanting for Israel’s destruction and the genocide of its people.
That so many of their fellow citizens—regardless of their age, education, ideology or background—would openly take the side of Hamas, the terror group that started a war on Oct. 7 with the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, remains mind-boggling. So is the fact that those who call themselves “progressives” are now rooting not just for the cessation of suffering for Palestinians but for the survival of a reactionary Islamist terrorist organization that despises their beliefs. Take, for example, “queers for Palestine,” who practice an alternative lifestyle that would have earned them a brutal execution in pre-Oct. 7 Gaza ruled by Hamas, but who sympathize with the Oct. 7 barbarians and deplore Israel’s efforts to eliminate them. It’s equally true about most others sounding the “from the river to the sea” slogan, whose grasp of the conflict is so flimsy that few can identify either body of water.
The problem transcends such obvious absurdities.
Even their manifest tone deafness about the way they are trafficking in traditional tropes of antisemitism similarly provides little insight into their motivations. How can anyone demand that Hamas be allowed to emerge triumphant from a war begun by atrocious crimes against humanity, or that the Islamists ultimately be allowed to enact their fantasy of a world without Israel and its 7 million Jewish inhabitants? Believing in their own righteousness
The answer is simple. They think they are the good guys and that their opponents are intrinsically evil. And that is why the attempts on the part of publications like The New York Times to analogize the anti-Israel protesters to those who demonstrated against the Vietnam War more than a half century ago are worth considering. Such claims are wildly inaccurate since the two conflicts have nothing to do with each other. But in some ways, this evocation of the past provides a telling insight into the psychology and motivations of contemporary left-wing antisemites.
The first thing to understand about such a discussion is that the corporate press is desperate to legitimize protests rooted in Jew-hatred. The Times article is, like similar pieces—such as a Washington Post story that seeks to engender sympathy for “Young U.S. Muslims” marching for Israel’s extinction in even unlikely settings like Huntsville, Ala.—primarily an effort to treat a deplorable campaign as a righteous cause taken up by brave idealists.
The anti-Israel bias of publications like the Times is no longer even open to debate. On the same day that it published its article titled, “In Campus Protests Over Gaza, Echoes of Outcry Over Vietnam,” it also ran a piece on its opinion pages by Yahya R. Sarraj, the Hamas operative who was mayor of Gaza City. The piece, which mentions Oct. 7 only in passing, focuses on the destruction that his organization brought to Gaza by starting a war with savage crimes like rape, torture, beheadings and the murder of entire families.
But it concludes with a passage that is gobsmacking in its disingenuousness: “Why,” he asks, “can’t Palestinians be treated equally, like Israelis and all other peoples in the world? Why can’t we live in peace and have open borders and free trade? Palestinians deserve to be free and have self-determination.” The answer is so obvious that even a New York Times editor ought to know it, which should have led the passage to be deleted even under the newspaper’s current low standards. Palestinians can’t have peace, open borders and free trade so long as they are led by and overwhelmingly support groups like Sarraj’s Hamas, whose avowed purpose is to destroy Israel and slaughter its people.
The idea that Israelis are simply supposed to sit back and await the next promised, vicious attack from Hamas would be considered ridiculous were it posed to any other nation than the one Jewish state on the planet. But that’s the assumption on the part of all those who are currently marching against Israel. Nothing to do with Vietnam
But what has any of this to do with the Vietnam War?
As even the Times was forced to concede, not much. America’s involvement in Vietnam began under the administration of President John F. Kennedy and escalated during that of Lyndon Johnson before Richard Nixon ended America’s direct involvement. It didn’t conclude until 1975 with the complete military conquest of South Vietnam by the Communist government of North Vietnam. But whatever one’s take on the rights and wrongs of that conflict, it has little in common with the century-old Arab war against Zionism or the events of the last three months.
The Vietnam War was justified as an attempt to prevent the spread of communism around the world. The result of the North Vietnamese victory was the imposition of a brutal totalitarian regime in the South with millions put in “re-education” camps and many more forced to flee as “boat people.” That proved that the pro-war cause was nobler than its critics, who damned it as imperialist oppression of Third World people, understood at the time.
A radical core of the anti-Vietnam movement led by the far-left may have seen it as part of an ideological war against the West, in which Communist oppressors were to be lauded because they were fighting imperialists. But most Americans who opposed the war had a different perspective.
The protests gained widespread support primarily because many believed that there was no good reason for a generation of young Americans to die in a civil war in Southeast Asia that wouldn’t ultimately impact the outcome of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The large-scale anti-war movement was a response not so much to an unsympathetic South Vietnamese ally. Nor was it really about the war’s mismanagement by Johnson and the Kennedy appointees that LBJ kept in place and allowed to drive the nation further into a war they were unwilling and unable to win.
The real reason for the protests was self-interest. It was a response to the draft, due to which young men who couldn’t get out of being conscripted through various exemptions (primarily a function of their economic status) were forced to serve. As soon as Nixon stopped sending draftees to Vietnam and then ended the draft entirely, the antiwar movement evaporated. By the time the war actually ended, few Americans cared then or since about its consequences for the Vietnamese people.
So, the notion that the alleged idealism of the groovy ’60s is making a comeback among the “from the river to the sea” crowd is pure bunk. Nobody is drafting American kids to go fight Hamas. That’s the obligation that young Israelis have willingly taken up to defend their homes and families. And if American protesters really are that concerned by the impact of war in Third World venues, there are plenty of opportunities to vent their concerns about other conflicts around the globe in which far more people have been killed.
Marxism’s comeback with DEI
Still, it’s not entirely wrong to see the roots of today’s anti-Israel protests in those radicals, who were the most violent elements of the protests against the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Unlike most Americans, the Marxists of the misnamed Students for a Democratic Society—veterans of which were featured in the Times article—wanted the Communists to win in much the same way those who compose the mobs tying up traffic, breaking up Christmas celebrations and intimidating Jewish students on campuses want Hamas to defeat Israel.
Unlike most of the Americans who were against the war in the 1960s without expressing hatred for their own country, the motivations of the large number of young people and Muslims who have swelled the numbers of the anti-Israel movement are ideological in nature. They are the product of a generation of education in which leftists—many of them former ’60s radicals—who believe in the myths of intersectionality that falsely analogize the Palestinian war against Israel to the struggle for civil rights in the United States. They’ve been indoctrinated in the toxic catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), as well as critical race theory, which divides the world into two immutable groups: victims of racism and racist oppressors.
This is a neo-Marxist dialectic not unrelated to the ideas of the so-called New Left that spawned SDS and the radical Weatherman terrorist movement that tried to blow up the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, the State Department and dozens of other targets during their campaign in what might well have been termed a real “insurrection.”
And that is what blinds them to the fact that they are devoting their energy and passion to supporting a cause that is fundamentally evil. The ideological prism through which they view the world mandates that the side that is designated by leftist doctrine as “white” and colonial (Israel) must be wrong and the one labeled as the cause of the oppressed “people of color” (the Palestinians) must be right.
They are insensible to obvious truths about a complex conflict that isn’t racial and that has always been driven by Arab refusal to share the land with the Jews. Their acceptance of the idea that Jews, who are the indigenous people of their ancient homeland, are colonizers in Israel much as Americans were depicted in Vietnam is as egregious as it is false. But that doesn’t matter to the protesters because they see the facts as irrelevant. Nor do they care about the horrors perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7 or even against their own people as they continue to sacrifice them on the altar of their never-ending war against the Jews.
Mainstreaming antisemitism
It’s true that Hamas’s useful idiots are using some of the same tactics pioneered by the anti-Vietnam movement. But what those seeking to lionize today’s demonstrators want to obfuscate in their alleged idealism about helping Gazans is given the lie by the antisemitism they are spreading. The arguments about Vietnam were not predicated on the horrible notion that wiping the only Jewish state off the map—an objective that could only be achieved by the genocide of the Jews—is a righteous cause. And even at their worst, the Vietnam protests didn’t target Jewish students, Jewish businesses or seek to drive Jews from the public square as these mobs seek to do. There’s no denying that the same core ideology driving the movement to destroy Israel is linked to the war on the West and the principles of American freedom that were championed by the Marxists of the ’60s New Left. Yet what is so damaging about demonstrators right now is not just their unabashed antisemitism. It’s the fact that their lies are being bought not by just a radical fringe but by a broad cross-section of young Americans who have been educated to believe that a genocidal, Jew-hating terrorist movement is the underdog deserving of support. This is the greatest tragedy of the post-Oct. 7 protests. And it is ultimately one that not just threatens Israel or the Jews, but the future of the United States as a free country.
*Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

Who killed Iran’s IRGC operative Sayyed Reza Mousavi in Syria, and why?
PAUL IDDON/RAWAN RADWAN/Arab News/December 26, 2023
IRBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan/JEDDAH: A senior member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary died in Syria on Monday in possibly the most consequential targeted killing the region has seen since the “shadow commander” Qassem Soleimani was eliminated by an American drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
Iran’s state-run media described Sayyed Reza Mousavi as “one of the oldest advisers of the IRGC in Syria” and close with Soleimani, who headed the IRGC’s Quds Force, which plots Tehran’s extraterritorial operations throughout the Middle East, arming and funding numerous proxy militias that do Iran’s bidding against its enemies.
“I would call Mousavi the second Qassem Soleimani. He knew everybody, had good contacts with people on the ground, militias and heads of groups,” Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami, founder and president of the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah) in Riyadh, told Arab News.
He said Mousavi had “more knowledge of the realities on the ground” in Syria than anyone else, including his boss and current Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, who Al-Sulami said is more knowledgeable about other countries and regions such as Afghanistan and Central Asia than about Syria and the Middle East.
“When it came to Middle East, it was Qassem Soleimani and Reza Mousavi, the second Qassem Soleimani,” he said. “Therefore, it is a very big loss for Iran and a big success for those who are tried to minimize the militia presence in Syria.”
Iran’s ambassador to Syria said that Mousavi had been working in the Iranian embassy in an official capacity as a diplomat and died in an Israeli missile strike in Sayyida Zeinab, a town in southern Damascus.
IRGC media in Iran said Mousavi had the rank of brigadier general. He had reportedly lived in Syria for 30 years and had an office at the Syrian Ministry of Defense.
Israel has refused to either confirm or deny its role in the killing, as is common in the case of strikes against Iran-related targets in Syria attributed to it.
Al-Sulami is not surprised that the prime suspect obtained the intelligence it needed for the high-profile elimination.
“I think intelligence agencies in important countries like UK, the US and, more importantly, Israel, know very well the importance of such people in Syria, even though these individuals try to be very quiet and keep a low profile,” he said.
“Most of the world’s intelligence services have their own sources on the ground. There is no secrecy in Syria, and Mousavi has been there for at least 30 years. He had been active there in coordination with the IRGC and militias like Fatemiyoun and Zainebiyoun, from countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, and groups coming from other countries.”
Mousavi would undoubtedly have been a tempting target for Israel since he reportedly began organizing the transfer of arms and funds to Iran’s militia proxies in Syria along with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a large missile arsenal in the years since Israel fought its last large-scale war with it in 2006.
“It has been evident for some time that Israel has seriously compromised the IRGC’s international spy-terrorist apparatus — and, indeed, has very good access within Iran itself,” independent Middle East analyst Kyle Orton told Arab News.
“The error in the Israeli policy has been in racking up these tactical victories.”
While Israel focused on thwarting IRGC plots regionally and worldwide, the IRGC continued “its strategic advance, knitting together its regional empire, stretching contiguously across the northern Middle East.”
Israel has launched thousands of intermittent airstrikes against targets throughout Syria since 2013 as part of its “war between the wars” campaign with Iran, itself part of a larger shadow war between those two enemies.
WHO WAS SAYYED REZA MOUSAVI?
• Was a commander, senior adviser of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
• Coordinated military relations between Syria and Iran.
• Lived in Syria for 30 years, kept office in Syrian Defense Ministry.
• Responsible for transferring funds from Iran to Syria and for Hezbollah salaries.
• Killed on Dec. 25 in neighborhood frequented by pro-Iranian militias in Damascus.
That air campaign aimed to prevent Iran and its militias from transferring sophisticated air defenses and surface-to-surface missiles to Hezbollah via Syria, an effort in which Mousavi is widely reported to have played a key role.
“The elimination of Reza Mousavi, if carried out by Israel, would be an important departure for a country that has generally targeted the IRGC’s physical infrastructure in Syria and avoided targeting personnel,” Orton said.
He said the “flaw” in the previous Israeli strategy was the speed at which IRGC bases could be rebuilt after these strikes, leading to the need for repeated strikes against the very same targets.
Meanwhile, the IRGC continued the “crucial work” of “embedding Iran’s influence” in the region through the tending and expansion of human networks with a combination of “military training and ideological indoctrination.”
Similar to the aftermath of Soleimani’s death, Al-Sulami of Rasanah believes the loss of Mousavi will result in greater fragmentation of the Iran-backed groups in Syria in the near future. However, he is doubtful there will be a major escalation between Iran and Israel anytime soon.
“I think both Iran and Israel are following the same strategy, which is indirect confrontations,” he said.
“Israel is attacking Iran in Syria and other places but they avoid conducting direct military operations inside Iran to avoid any escalations. For Iran, it’s the same. They try to attack Israelis in Cyprus, Greece, and other countries. That will continue for maybe years to come.”
Orton is doubtful that Mousavi’s elimination will singlehandedly “have much impact” on Iran’s control in Syria.
“The Iranians have been applying the Islamic Revolution’s model to Syria at a very high-intensity for more than a decade and, as Mousavi’s personal history attests, the program has been ongoing for much longer than that,” he said.
“If Mousavi’s killing is not a one-off, however, and Israel has switched to a policy of targeting senior IRGC personnel in Syria, over time this can have a cumulative impact in destabilizing the Iranian project in that country.”
Such a policy change could result in the IRGC deciding to fire missiles from Yemen and possibly Lebanon.
The Iran-backed Houthis have already escalated attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea and fired at US warships there. The US has also directly accused Iran of responsibility for an attack on Saturday on a chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean, which saw a one-way attack drone hit the vessel 200 nautical miles from the Indian coast, far from the Red Sea.
That air campaign aims to prevent the transfer of sophisticated air defenses and surface-to-surface missiles to Hezbollah via Syria. (AFP/File)
Orton, too, is skeptical of a major escalation that goes beyond these tit-for-tat incidents, noting that Israeli intelligence has “badly infiltrated” the IRGC networks, making it unlikely the powerful paramilitary could “manage a ‘spectacular’ response.”
He recalled how Iran had “very publicly committed itself” to avenging the 2020 killing of Soleimani in such a fashion. Iran initially responded to his death by firing ballistic missiles at an Iraqi airbase hosting American troops, leaving several American soldiers with traumatic brain injuries.
Incidentally, US forces in Iraqi Kurdistan came under attack on Monday by an explosive-laden militia drone shortly after Mousavi’s killing. The attack injured three soldiers, leaving one reportedly in critical condition.
The US launched retaliatory airstrikes against militias in Iraq in a move that once again raises the risk of escalation in that volatile country and possibly beyond.