Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 06-07/2024
Video/Know Your Enemy: The Iranian Mullahs’ Regime and Its Terrorism Proxies/Elias Bejjani/January 06, 2024
Video & Text/Know Your Enemy: The Iranian Mullahs’ Regime and Its Terrorism Proxies/Elias Bejjani/January 06, 2024
A historic day in the South... "Hezbollah" and Israel engage in a "fire for fire" exchange!
A Noteworthy Day of Conflict in the South... "Hezbollah" and Israel Exchange "Fire for Fire"!
"Hezbollah" Declares Bombardment of Israeli Airbase with 62 Missiles in Response to the Assassination of Al-Arouri
Resolution 1701 adherence: Maronite patriarch warns against Lebanon's 'entanglement' in Gaza conflict
Amid tensions: Israeli shelling and strikes reported in multiple locations; here are the details
Resolution 1701 implementation: Berri highlights EU role and calls for Israeli withdrawal
Mikati addresses 'Israeli aggression' in Borrell meeting: Seeking peace amidst southern Lebanon tensions
The latest on the visit of EU's Borrell to Lebanon
EU’s Borrell says it is necessary to avoid escalation in the Middle East
Borrell: I will visit Saudi Arabia tomorrow to discuss steps toward peace in the region
Northern Israel in emergency: The unfolding crisis with Lebanon
EU foreign policy chief holds talks in Beirut, warns against escalation of Gaza conflict
Israeli jets strike Lebanon following Hezbollah rocket fire
Hezbollah says it hit Israeli observation post with 62 rockets
Hezbollah fires at Israel army base after Hamas deputy killing
Hezbollah fires rockets from Lebanon at Israeli post in ‘first response’ to killing of Hamas leader
EU foreign policy chief warns against Lebanon getting dragged into conflict
Israel and Hezbollah are on the brink of wider war after a week of threats and attacks
Israel, Hezbollah exchange fire across Lebanon border amid alarm over Gaza war spillover

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 06-07/2024
Israel army says Hamas command structure ‘dismantled’ in north Gaza
Netanyahu vows ‘complete victory’ as more bombs hit Gaza
Palestinians rebury bodies exhumed from Gaza cemetery
What Israel’s deadly attack on a Gaza refugee camp says about IDF’s conduct, choice of weaponry
Famine in Gaza ‘around the corner,’ as people face ‘highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded,’ UN relief chief says
UN warns Gaza 'uninhabitable' as war rages on
Blinken opens latest urgent Mideast tour in Turkey as fears grow that Gaza war may engulf region
Blinken: M. East nations need to use influence to prevent 'endless cycle of violence'
US military says it downs another drone over Red Sea
Red Sea War: Houthi drone boat detonation opens a new chapter
Tired Zelensky looks too weak to achieve victory
Russian forces repeated failed tank assaults 7 times across the same kill zone and were destroyed each time, says report
Turkish justice minister says 15 suspects jailed ahead of trial for spying for Israel
Russia wants missiles from North Korea and Iran because they can exploit a gap in Ukraine's air defenses, analysts say
Top US budget official warns of ‘dire’ situation on Ukraine aid
Biden compares 'sick' Trump to Nazis in 2024 campaign launch
US defense secretary has been in hospital since Jan. 1

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on January 06-07/2024
2024: The Year Iran Will Go Nuclear If Western Powers Do Not Act/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/January 06, 2024
How Islamic State bombings in Iran could escalate regional war/Harriet Marsden/The Week UK/ January 06/2024
Terrorism in Iran Exposes a Vulnerability It Doesn’t Want to Admit Having/Farnaz Fassihi/The New York Times/January 6, 2024
Netanyahu’s judicial coup is over … for now/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/January 06, 2024
A major election year that will shape the world for the next decade/Andrew Hammond/Arab News/January 06, 2024
Israel has woken up to Islamist terror, while the West remains asleep/Zoe Strimpel/The Telegraph/January 06, 2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 06-07/2024
Video/Know Your Enemy: The Iranian Mullahs’ Regime and Its Terrorism Proxies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJcSBNVPmmY&t=307s
Elias Bejjani/January 06, 2024

Video & Text/Know Your Enemy: The Iranian Mullahs’ Regime and Its Terrorism Proxies
Elias Bejjani/January 06, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125861/125861/
There is no doubt that the primary and most perilous threat to Lebanon’s coexistence, culture, history, present, future, identity, common living, and Lebanon the message is exclusively the Iranian regime.
This oppressive force not only subjects its own people to torture and massacre but also stands as an adversary to all Arabs, the entire civilized world, and humanity in general.
The Iranian regime is a common enemy, and it is crucial to acknowledge its role in fostering proxies of Jihadism, fundamentalism, terrorism, and barbarism. Notable among these proxies is Hezbollah in Lebanon, along with similar entities in Gaza, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria.
These groups are the actual adversaries, undoubtedly supported by the ignorant, the uninformed, the hypocrites, and all those Lebanese who have deviated towards hostility, hatred, and rejection of others.
Dear Lebanese, it is imperative to grasp this reality and respond accordingly – the Iranian Mullahs’ Regime and all its proxies represent the true enemy.

A historic day in the South... "Hezbollah" and Israel engage in a "fire for fire" exchange!
Hussein Saad /Janoubia January 6, 2024
The day in the South was notably marked by a missile operation that surpassed the preceding 89 days, encompassing the period since the commencement of the occupation and support operation carried out by Hezbollah since October 8 of the previous year in support of Gaza.
In the early morning hours, Hezbollah opened the launchers of its rockets, unleashing them towards the Israeli "Miron" airbase in the western Galilee region of the occupied Palestine. According to their statement, 62 rockets were launched at this base, situated approximately eight kilometers from the Lebanese border with Palestine. This act was a response, as indicated by Hezbollah, to the assassination of the Hamas leader, martyr Saleh Al-Arouri, and six of his comrades in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
This targeting, the first of its kind in terms of scale and tools used, reflects the implementation of the promise made by Hezbollah's Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, to respond to the assassination crime. It also serves as a military and security message to the Israelis, stating that any strike will be met with a counterstrike. At the same time, it tests Israel's response to such types of attacks. According to sources, Hezbollah is cautious not to escalate the situation into a full-scale war, preferring to maintain the current confrontation rhythm established for three months, despite the significant losses suffered, including casualties, displacement, and destruction that has affected nearly one hundred thousand people. Israeli madness reached for the first time the town of Kfarkatra Al-Sayyad in the district of Sidon, where the warplanes targeted a house, resulting in a gathering of citizens. The second airstrike almost led to a massacre. It was clear that the Israeli enemy aimed, from the targeted location, which is more than forty kilometers from the border, to send a message to Hezbollah through the "fire for fire" approach, responding to the heavy strike on the Miron airbase.
Dozens of airstrikes targeted Kfar Kila, Markaba, Aytashab, Ramia, Yaroun, and the Maalya region south of Tyre and Ainatha. Two people were injured simultaneously with phosphorous artillery shelling along the length and width of the border towns, causing five Hezbollah members to fall as martyrs. Several civilians were injured, and homes were completely destroyed.
Mourning for 6 martyrs:
The military media in Hezbollah mourned the martyrs: "The martyr Mujahid Abbas Hussein Rammal 'Abd al-Rasul' from Adaisa, the martyr Mujahid Abdullah Hassan Al-Asmar 'Abu Hussein' from Adaisa, the martyr Mujahid Khader Ali Mahanna 'Abu Ali Rida,' the martyr Mujahid Mustafa Mahmoud Jaber 'Jawad Abbas' from Mhaybib, the martyr Mustafa Hassan Saad from Bint Jbeil, and Hassan Abdul Jafar from Tyre, residents of the northern tower, who became martyrs on the road to Jerusalem."
Importance of the Miron base:
The Miron base is considered a center for administration, monitoring, and the only air traffic control in northern Palestine. It is responsible for organizing, coordinating, and managing air operations towards Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, and the northern part of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea. It is also one of the two main bases, with Mitzpeh Ramon to the south, housing a large number of elite officers and soldiers. The base serves as a primary center for electronic interference operations in the mentioned directions.

A Noteworthy Day of Conflict in the South... "Hezbollah" and Israel Exchange "Fire for Fire"!
Hussein Saad /Janoubia January 6, 2024
It was a day in the South, remarkably characterized by missile activities, surpassing the preceding 89 days. This period corresponds to the commencement of the occupation and support operation conducted by Hezbollah since October 8 of the previous year, in support of Gaza.
Hezbollah opened the launchers of its missiles in the early morning hours, unleashing them towards the Israeli "Miron" airbase in the western Galilee region of the occupied Palestine. According to their statement, 62 rockets were launched at this base, located approximately eight kilometers from the Lebanese border with Palestine. This action falls under the category of settling scores, in response to the assassination of the Hamas leader, martyr Saleh Al-Arouri, and six of his comrades in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
This targeting, the first of its kind in terms of type, scale, and tools used, involves the execution of the promise made by Hezbollah's Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, to respond to the assassination crime. It also serves as a military and security message to the Israelis, stating that any strike will be met with a counterstrike. At the same time, it tests Israel's response to such types of attacks. Despite the losses incurred—bloodshed, livelihoods, and displacement—exceeding one hundred thousand, Hezbollah, according to its sources, is cautious not to fuel Israel's appetite for war, preferring the ongoing confrontation rhythm established for three months. Israeli madness targeted, for the first time, the town of Kfarkatra Al-Sayyad in the district of Sidon, where the warplanes targeted a house with an airstrike, gathering citizens in its aftermath. The second airstrike almost resulted in a massacre. It was evident that the Israeli enemy aimed, from the targeted location, which is more than forty kilometers from the border, to send a message with fire to Hezbollah. This retaliation was in response to Hezbollah's heavy strike on the Miron airbase, launching from the principle of "fire for fire" and measuring distance with distance.
Dozens of airstrikes were carried out on Kfar Kila, Markaba, Aytashab, Ramia, Yaroun, and the Maalya region south of Tyre and Ainatha. Two individuals were injured simultaneously with phosphorous artillery shelling along the length and width of the border towns, resulting in the fall of five Hezbollah members as martyrs. Several civilians were injured, and homes were completely destroyed.
Mourning for 6 martyrs:
Hezbollah's military media mourned the martyrs: "The martyr Mujahid Abbas Hussein Rammal 'Abd al-Rasul' from Adaisa, the martyr Mujahid Abdullah Hassan Al-Asmar 'Abu Hussein' from Adaisa, the martyr Mujahid Khader Ali Mahanna 'Abu Ali Rida,' the martyr Mujahid Mustafa Mahmoud Jaber 'Jawad Abbas' from Mhaybib, the martyr Mustafa Hassan Saad from Bint Jbeil, and Hassan Abdul Jafar from Tyre, residents of the northern tower, who became martyrs on the road to Jerusalem."
Miron Base and its Importance:
The Miron base is considered a center for administration, monitoring, and the sole air traffic control in northern Palestine. It is responsible for organizing, coordinating, and managing air operations towards Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, and the northern part of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea. It is also one of the two main bases, along with Mitzpeh Ramon to the south, housing a large number of elite officers and soldiers. The base serves as a primary center for electronic interference operations in the mentioned directions.

"Hezbollah" Declares Bombardment of Israeli Airbase with 62 Missiles in Response to the Assassination of Al-Arouri
Al-Siyasa /January 6, 2024
Lebanese Hezbollah announced the bombardment of the Israeli Miron airbase with 62 missiles in response to the recent assassination of Saleh Al-Arouri in the southern suburbs of Beirut. In a statement, Hezbollah mentioned that the Miron airbase is located on the summit of Mount Jarmaq in northern occupied Palestine, being the highest peak in the occupied Palestinian territories. Miron is considered the sole center for administration, monitoring, and air traffic control in the north of the occupying entity, with no major alternative. It is one of the two main bases in the entire occupying entity, the other being Mitzpeh Ramon to the south. The statement continued: "Islamic Resistance fighters, in the framework of the initial response to the assassination of the great leader Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri and his martyr brothers in the southern suburbs of Beirut, targeted the Miron airbase with 62 missiles of various types at 08:10 this Saturday morning. The missiles caused direct and confirmed injuries."Lebanese media reported the killing of Palestinian leader Saleh Al-Arouri in an Israeli airstrike last Tuesday, targeting an office of the Hamas movement in the Msharafieh area south of Beirut.

Hezbollah fires 62 rockets at Israel air surveillance base in 'initial response' to Dahieh strike
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/January 06, 2024
Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel on Saturday, warning that the barrage was its initial response to Israel's assassination of a top leader from the allied Hamas group in the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs earlier this week. The rocket attack came a day after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that his group must retaliate for the killing of Saleh Arouri, the deputy political leader of Hamas in a Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut. Nasrallah said that if Hezbollah did not strike back, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attack. He appeared to be making his case for a response to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on. Hezbollah said Saturday that it launched 62 rockets toward an Israeli air surveillance base on Mount Meron and that it scored direct hits. The Israeli military said about 40 rockets were fired toward Meron and that a base was targeted, but made no mention of the base being hit. It said it struck the Hezbollah cell that fired the rockets. Air raid sirens went off in towns and cities across northern Israel, later also blaring in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Israel-Lebanon border has seen regular exchanges of fire, mainly between Israeli forces and Hamas ally Hezbollah, since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike that killed Arouri, the first on the Lebanese capital since hostilities began last year.
Nearly three months of cross-border fire have killed 175 people in Lebanon, including 129 Hezbollah fighters, but also more than 20 civilians including three journalists. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

Resolution 1701 adherence: Maronite patriarch warns against Lebanon's 'entanglement' in Gaza conflict
LBCI/January 06, 2024
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi emphasized the need to adhere to Resolution 1701, urging Lebanon and the Lebanese people to exercise wisdom and self-restraint to avoid being drawn into Israel's war on Gaza.  During his sermon, Patriarch al-Rahi called for refraining from involving border towns, Lebanon, and its people in the extension of this war. He stated, "We do not want Lebanon and its people to bear the burden of other nations and peoples." Continuing, he said, "We never cease to demand, with all our capabilities and through all official authorities and references, the right of the Palestinian people to return to their land and live in a state of their own," noting that this approach is more effective than war, killing, destruction, displacement, dispersion on the roads, hunger, oppression, and deprivation. He also called for starting to find solutions through diplomatic negotiations, reminding that the decision of war and peace is solely the government's responsibility, requiring a two-thirds majority of its members according to the constitution (Article 65), given the serious consequences of every war.

Amid tensions: Israeli shelling and strikes reported in multiple locations; here are the details
LBCI/January 06, 2024
Israeli shelling was reported in the vicinity of the Khiam detention center. In a series of "attacks," an Israeli drone conducted a strike on the Al-Jami' neighborhood in Yaroun, causing no reported injuries. Additionally, Israeli artillery shelling targeted the western outskirts of Mays al Jabal, Wadi al-Saluki, and the outskirts of Houla. Further artillery shelling occurred on the western outskirts of At Tiri and on the outskirts of Rachaf. Israeli warplanes also launched a raid on the Abu Laban neighborhood and Al-Kharaza area in Aita Al-Shaab, while Israeli artillery shelling hit the outskirts of Ramyeh.

Resolution 1701 implementation: Berri highlights EU role and calls for Israeli withdrawal
LBCI/January 06, 2024
In Ain el tineh, Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri discussed with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, and the accompanying delegation in the presence of the EU Ambassador to Lebanon, Sandra De Waele, the general situation and the political and field developments in Lebanon and the region in light of Israel's continued "aggression" on the Gaza Strip and the southern Lebanese regions. Borrell expressed his great concern about the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip and his insistence on not expanding it towards Lebanon. He expressed his fear of Israeli escalation, emphasizing the necessity for the priority to be given to stopping the war in the Gaza Strip, as it is the gateway to restoring calm to Lebanon. At that point, it becomes easier to discuss the full implementation of the provisions of Resolution 1701. Berri highlighted the participation of European Union countries in the UNIFIL forces and their role over the decades as witnesses to Israeli violations and attacks on southern Lebanon and its residents, as they do today. Berri affirmed to Borrell Lebanon's commitment to international legitimacy and its relevant resolutions, especially Resolution 1701, confirming that the entry point for its implementation begins with Israel stopping its "aggression" and withdrawing from all occupied Lebanese territory. On the domestic political level, Speaker Berri emphasized the importance of achieving the presidential deadline, regardless of the repercussions of the "aggressive war" waged by Israel. He revealed his constant readiness to cooperate with the efforts of the Quintet Committee to accomplish this deadline.

Mikati addresses 'Israeli aggression' in Borrell meeting: Seeking peace amidst southern Lebanon tensions
LBCI/January 06, 2024
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati discussed the ongoing collaboration between the Lebanese government and the European Union in social, economic, and administrative reform matters with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell. During their meeting at his residence in Beirut, Mikati emphasized the necessity of resolving the Syrian refugee file by supporting their presence in their homeland to encourage their return. Regarding the Israeli aggression on Gaza and southern Lebanon, Mikati stated, "We are seekers of peace, not advocates of war. We look forward to achieving stability and are engaged in necessary communications in this regard because any large-scale 'explosion' in southern Lebanon will lead the region into a comprehensive 'blast.'" He also affirmed Lebanon's commitment to implementing UN Resolution 1701, emphasizing that "full implementation of this resolution requires, first and foremost, stopping Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty and withdrawing from Lebanese territories that are still occupied."Mikati called for efforts to establish a comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue by granting Palestinians their just rights.

The latest on the visit of EU's Borrell to Lebanon
LBCI/January 06, 2024
To prevent the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip from turning into a regional conflict, the EU's Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell, carried more than one file within the framework of Resolution 1701. Not all meetings were public. Borrell met with the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc head, Deputy Mohammed Raad, away from the media. However, in his official meetings, he conveyed the Israeli demand, which has become known, for Hezbollah to retreat to the north of the Litani, according to what LBCI learned. But, what was discussed in the meeting did not appear in the stances. Borrell did not present only the Israeli position but also sought a role for the European Union to stop the war on Gaza. In the meetings, the Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, emphasized that they are seekers of peace, not supporters of war, and they look forward to achieving stability and conducting necessary communications in this regard. As for the Speaker of Parliament, he stressed Lebanon's commitment to international legitimacy and its relevant decisions, especially Resolution 1701. Furthermore, he said that the approach to its implementation begins with Israel stopping its aggression and withdrawing from the entire occupied Lebanese territory. Borrell concluded his announced meetings in Lebanon on Sunday to move on to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a new round of meetings in search of a solution.

EU’s Borrell says it is necessary to avoid escalation in the Middle East
Borrell: I will visit Saudi Arabia tomorrow to discuss steps toward peace in the region
LBCI/January 06, 2024
The official responsible for foreign policy in the European Union, Josep Borrell, expressed on Saturday the necessity of avoiding escalation in the Middle East and preventing Lebanon from being dragged into war. He considered that peace alone ensures security in the Middle East, and Gaza is an integral part of the broader Palestinian issue. During a joint press conference with the Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdallah Bou Habib, Borrell emphasized that no one will achieve victory through any regional escalation. He also noted that he is in Lebanon to contribute to finding a solution to the crisis. Borrell also affirmed that he will spare no effort to make the two-state solution a reality, mentioning that he will visit Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss steps toward peace in the region. In response, Bou Habib confirmed that the Lebanese government seeks to de-escalate and that a political solution alone is sufficient to put an end to decades of the long cycle of violence. Furthermore, he pointed out that the pressure Lebanon is facing due to the displacement crisis has exceeded all limits, emphasizing that if this crisis does not find any resolution, it will pose a threat to the existence of Lebanon. He also highlighted the importance of enhancing the partnership between Lebanon and the European Union.

Northern Israel in emergency: The unfolding crisis with Lebanon
LBCI/January 06, 2024
The Israelis woke up on Saturday, a day before the three-month anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood War, finding the entire northern region in a state of extreme emergency, warning of the possibility of a war with Lebanon. In the morning, Israel was shaken in Mount Meron, near Safed, a strategic and sensitive area with an air force base. Hezbollah targeted it in an initial response to the assassination of Hamas leader Saleh Al-Arouri in the heart of the southern suburbs of Beirut. Israel expected an escalation, but not with this precision or an impact on an area that is almost secret even for Israelis. The Israelis, who received a clear message after Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's speech, did not wait long to clarify their stance on this area. Hezbollah's missile barrages were not limited to the Meron base but covered a vast area in the north and Upper Galilee, forcing Israelis to open shelters and close roads, vital for movement in the north. Furthermore, the army declared the area a closed military zone two kilometers from the Lebanon border. The rocket attacks, accompanied by air raid sirens warning of the infiltration of drones, confused the army units and led them to activate defense systems. Amid this, the Israeli debate entered a decisive stage between the diplomatic solution and the military operation, all while awaiting the arrival of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv, expected on Tuesday. Seventy percent of the northern population's pressure toward executing a military operation has not, until now, influenced the decision to declare war on Lebanon. However, some Israelis consider the cost of such a war to be high for their country, coming at the expense of the Gaza conflict. This pushes them to demand increased pressure on US officials to ensure a diplomatic agreement that guarantees lasting calm on the Israeli-Lebanese border instead of a war that will drag the entire region into a dangerous regional conflict.

EU foreign policy chief holds talks in Beirut, warns against escalation of Gaza conflict
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/January 06, 2024
BEIRUT: EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has warned that an expansion of the war in Gaza into a wider regional conflict, especially one that involves Lebanon, must be prevented. “It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East,” he said during a press conference in Beirut on Saturday with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib. “It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict.”Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said his efforts are focused on preventing this from happening. After a meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Beirut, Borrell said: “The priority is to avoid regional escalation and push diplomatic efforts to create the conditions to reach a just and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine and in the region.” Mikati told Borrell the Lebanese people are “advocates of peace, not war, and we seek to achieve stability” and “we are making the necessary contacts in this regard because any large-scale explosion (of hostilities) in southern Lebanon will lead the region to a widespread explosion.”He said Lebanon “is committed to implementing UN Resolution 1701, and its full implementation first calls for Israel to stop violating Lebanese sovereignty and to withdraw from the Lebanese territories that it still occupies.” Resolution 1701 was approved by the UN Security Council in August 2006 with the aim of resolving the war that year between Israel and Hezbollah. During a meeting with Nabih Berri, the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Borrell reportedly expressed “great concern about the war continuing in the Gaza Strip,” his “keenness to not expand it toward Lebanon,” and his “fear of Israeli escalation.”Borrell said “stopping the War on the Gaza Strip must be the priority since it is the gateway to restoring calm to Lebanon. It will be then easy to discuss the full implementation of the provisions of Resolution 1701.”
Berri told Borrell that Lebanon is committed to international legitimacy and all relevant UN resolutions, in particular Resolution 1701, the implementation of which begins with Israel halting its aggression and withdrawing from the Lebanese territory it occupies. He added: “War can be avoided and we must avoid it. Diplomacy can prevail to find a solution.”Borrell said “it is necessary to avoid escalation in the Middle East and dragging Lebanon into war, which is the last thing (the country) needs. “Lebanon is on the front line of the current conflict. It enjoys stability and can preserve its interests and independence, thus contributing to regional stability.” He also emphasized the need to implement Resolution 1701. Borrell also met Gen. Aroldo Lazaro, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon’s head of mission and force commander, to discuss the current situation along the Blue Line, the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel established by the UN in June 2000, and the importance of efforts to prevent any escalation of violence. UNIFIL’s media office said: “The pursuit of a diplomatic solution is not only possible but also necessary.”Borrell talks came shortly after Hezbollah targeted Israel’s Meron air control base with 62 missiles on Saturday, which the group said resulted in “direct and confirmed hits.” It described the attack as an “initial response” to the assassination by Israel of Hamas deputy leader Saleh Al-Arouri in a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday. Hours earlier, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had said during a speech that a response to the attack that killed Al-Arouri would “inevitably come, and it will be determined on the ground.”
A political observer described Hezbollah’s comment that the response was only an initial one as “a convenient tactic for the party that does not deviate from the rules of engagement adopted on the southern Lebanese front for the past 91 days.”Explaining the reason for choosing the target of its attack, Hezbollah said: “Meron air control base is located on the top of Mount Jarmaq in northern occupied Palestine, the highest mountain peak in occupied Palestine. It is the only center for management, surveillance and air control in northern Israel and no major alternative exists.”The base “is concerned with organizing all air operations toward Syria, Lebanon, Turkiye, Cyprus and the northern part of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea” and “one of two main bases in all of Israel — Meron in the north and Mitzpe Ramon in the south.”The Israeli army on Saturday morning ordered the closure of all streets and intersections along the border with Lebanon, and stepped up airstrikes on border areas in Lebanon. These strikes extended into a new location, between Kawthariyat Al-Siyad and the town of Sharqiya in Sidon district. Three strikes took place there and it was the first time such Israeli attacks have crossed the Litani River. Israeli airstrikes also hit the surrounding areas of Aita Al-Shaab, Yaroun, Beit Lev, Khiam, Kafr Kila, Al-Housh, Burj Al-Muluk, Markaba, Rab El-Thalathine, and Al-Adaysah. Drone attacks targeted the towns of Marwahin and Yarin more than once, while artillery shells were fired at areas on the outskirts of the cities of Marwahin and Al-Dhahira. Israeli artillery also targeted the western outskirts of the towns of Mays Al-Jabal, Wadi Al-Saluki and Hula. Hezbollah said its forces successfully struck a site in the town of Metulla, near the border, and army barracks in Zarit, and targeted a group of enemy soldiers near Honen Barracks. They also attacked a military site in the Margolet settlement, using an anti-tank missile, and a site at Bayad Blida. A Syrian refugee, Fatima Al-Aoush, was reportedly injured in one Israeli attack at the Tower of Kings in Lebanon. The town of Yaron was also targeted by Israeli drones, and Khiam was reportedly struck by phosphorus bombs, as a result of which two civilians suffered burns. Fajr Forces, the military wing of Jamaa Islamiyya, said that they bombed the city of Kiryat Shmona on Friday evening. Meanwhile, Hezbollah mourned four of its members killed in the fighting: Mustafa Hassan Saad from Bint Jbeil, Khader Muhanna from Kafr Kila, Abdullah Al-Asmar from Al-Adisa, and Abbas Hassan Rammal.

Israeli jets strike Lebanon following Hezbollah rocket fire
Euronews/, January 6, 2024
Israel has struck a number of targets in southern Lebanon, following rocket attacks by Hezbollah earlier on Saturday. The Israeli Defence Force shared footage of several strikes on X, hitting a mix of buildings and rural sites. It said a "terrorist squad, launch site, military buildings and terrorist infrastructure" were targeted. They said Israeli jets had hit Hezbollah targets in Aita al-Sha’ab, Yaron and Ramya.
Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel
Lebanon’s Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel on Saturday, raising the spectre of regional conflict. The Shiite militant and political group warned the barrage was its "initial response" to the suspected Israeli strike on a top Hamas leader in Beirut earlier this week. Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed to retaliate for the killing of Saleh Arouri, the deputy political leader of Hamas, saying that doing nothing would make Lebanon vulnerable to Israeli attack. Nasrallah appeared to be making the case for a response to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. However, he did not indicate how or when the militants would act. Hezbollah said Saturday that it launched 62 rockets toward an Israeli air surveillance base on Mount Meron and it scored direct hits. Israel's military said about 40 rockets were fired towards Meron, but made no mention of a base. It said it struck the cell that fired the rockets. Hezbollah is a key ally of Hamas in Gaza and has supported the Palestinian militant group in its war with Israel. Hezbollah has exchanged first with Israeli forces on an almost daily basis since fighting began on 7 October.
UN warns Gaza is 'uninhabitable'
The United Nations humanitarian chief has described Gaza as “uninhabitable” three months into Israel's war with Hamas, warning that famine was looming and a public health disaster unfolding. Assessing the devastating impact of Israel’s military response to the horrific Hamas attacks on 7 October, Martin Griffiths said that Gaza's 2.3 million people face “daily threats to their very existence." He pointed out that tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured, families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet and areas where Palestinians were told to relocate have been bombed.
“People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded (and) famine is around the corner,” Griffiths said. The few partially functioning hospitals are overwhelmed and critically short of supplies, medical facilities are under relentless attack, infectious diseases are spreading and, amidst the chaos, some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth every day. “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable,” the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs said. He said the humanitarian community is facing an “impossible mission” – trying to help more than two million people, while UN staff and aid workers from partner organisations are killed, communications blackouts continue, roads are damaged, truck convoys are shot at and vital commercial supplies “are almost non-existent”.Griffiths' message comes as UNICEF warn that cases of diarrhoea among children under 5 have risen from 48,000 to 71,000 in Gaza - an indication of poor nutrition.
Only 2,000 cases of diarrhoea are usually reported each month in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians seeking refuge in southern Gaza say every day has become a struggle to find also food, water, medicine and working bathrooms. Only a trickle of humanitarian aid has entered the Palestinian territory since Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel ignited the war. Fewer than 200 aid trucks enter each day, less than half the prewar level - and aid groups say the fighting hinders distribution.

Hezbollah says it hit Israeli observation post with 62 rockets
CAIRO (Reuters)/January 6, 2024
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said it hit a key Israeli observation post early on Saturday with 62 rockets as a "preliminary response" to the killing of Hamas' deputy chief earlier this week. Senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed on Tuesday, Jan. 2 in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiyeh. Analysts said the strike could be seen as a message to Hamas ally Hezbollah that even its prime stronghold of Dahiyeh could be vulnerable to Israeli attack. Hezbollah had said his killing would not go without punishment. Its head Sayyed Hassan Nassallah said on Friday that being "silent" on the strike would allow all of Lebanon to be vulnerable to more attacks. The statement on Saturday said the group had hit a main post on an elevated hilltop that Israel relied on for "aerial observation" and "air control". There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Hezbollah fires at Israel army base after Hamas deputy killing
AP/January 06, 2024
BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel on Saturday, warning that the barrage was its initial response to the targeted killing, presumably by Israel, of a top Hamas leader in Lebanon’s capital earlier this week. The rocket attack came a day after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group must retaliate for the killing of Saleh Arouri, the deputy political leader of the militia’s ally Hamas, in a Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut. He said if Hezbollah did not strike back, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attack. He appeared to be making his case for a response to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on. Hezbollah said it launched 62 rockets toward an Israeli air surveillance base on Mount Meron and that it scored direct hits. It said rockets also struck two army posts near the border. The Israeli military said about 40 rockets were fired toward Meron and that a base was targeted, but made no mention of the base being hit. It said it struck the Hezbollah cell that fired the rockets. Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon hit the outskirts of Kouthariyeh Al-Siyad village, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said, adding that there were casualties. Such strikes deeper inside Lebanon have been rare since the border fighting started nearly three months ago. NNA also said Israeli forces shelled border areas including the town of Khiam. Israel’s army had no immediate comment.
Separately, the armed wing of the Islamic Group in Lebanon, the country’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and a close ally of Hamas, said it fired two volleys of rockets toward the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on Friday night. Two of the group’s members were killed in the strike that killed Arouri.
The cross-border escalation came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was kicking off an urgent Middle East diplomatic tour, his fourth to the region since the Israel-Hamas war erupted three months ago. The war was triggered by a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. In recent weeks, Israel has been scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza and pressing its heavy offensive in the territory’s south, vowing to crush Hamas. In the south, most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while still being pounded by Israeli airstrikes. On Saturday, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 122 Palestinians had been killed over the past 24 hours, bringing the total since the start of the war to 22,722. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. The ministry has said two-thirds of those killed have been women or children. The overall number of wounded rose to 58,166, the ministry said. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central city of Deir Al-Balah received at least 46 bodies overnight, according to hospital records seen by The Associated Press. Many were men who apparently had been shot. Fighting has raged between Israeli forces and militants in the area. The dead also included five members of a family who were killed in an airstrike, the records showed.
The latest Israeli-dropped leaflets urged Palestinians in some areas near the hospital to evacuate, citing “dangerous fighting.”In the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive, the European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people who were killed in an overnight airstrike on a house in the city’s Maan neighborhood, said Saleh Al-Hamms, head of the hospital’s nursing department. Citing witnesses, he said more than three dozen people had been sheltering in the house, including some who had been displaced.
Israel has held Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the group has embedded itself within Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. Still, international criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war has grown because of the rising civilian death toll. The United States has urged Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it keeps sending weapons and munitions while shielding its close ally against international censure. Blinken began his latest Mideast trip in Turkiye on Saturday. The Biden administration believes Turkiye and others can exert influence, particularly on Iran and its proxies, to tamp down fears of a regional conflagration. Those fears have spiked in recent days with incidents in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. In talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken sought Turkish support for nascent plans for post-war Gaza that could include monetary or in-kind contributions to reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in a proposed multinational force that could operate in or adjacent to the territory. From Turkiye, Blinken was traveling to Turkish rival and fellow NATO ally Greece to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at his home on the island of Crete. Mitsotakis and his government have been supportive of US efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spreading and have signaled their willingness to assist should the situation deteriorate. Other stops on the trip include Jordan, followed by Qatar and UAE. Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank next week before wrapping up the trip in Egypt. The European Union’s foreign policy chief said during a visit to Beirut that he aims to jump-start a European-Arab initiative to revive a peace process that would result in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hezbollah fires rockets from Lebanon at Israeli post in ‘first response’ to killing of Hamas leader
CBC/Lizzie Porter/January 6, 2024
Hezbollah has launched a salvo of rockets into Israel from Lebanon in what it said was its “first response” to the assassination of a senior Hamas official in Beirut last week. The Iran-backed group announced that it had fired 62 rockets towards an aerial observation base on Mount Meron at around 8am on Saturday, “in the framework of the initial response to the assassination of the senior leader Saleh al-Arouri and his martyr brothers.” Warning sirens rang out across northern Israel and attack alert apps pinged with notifications about the incoming barrage. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that it had identified at least 40 launches from Lebanon, and later, “struck a terrorist cell that took part in the launches.” An IDF base was targeted during the barrage of Hezbollah rockets, an IDF official told The Telegraph.
No Israeli injuries reported
“No IDF injuries were reported, but we can confirm that there was damage caused as a result of the barrage, however we are unable to say the extent or what was damaged as of right now,” the official said. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that the terror group would retaliate for Al-Arouri’s killing. It has not laid out what further steps it may take following Saturday’s attack. Hezbollah is an ally of Hamas and has been exchanging cross-border fire with Israel for the past three months in solidarity. The violence has displaced tens of thousands of people in both Israel and Lebanon. The Hezbollah strike came as tensions rose on the border between Israel and Lebanon in the wake of Al-Arouri’s killing. US and European officials have renewed attempts for a diplomatic solution to governance and security in southern Lebanon to attempt to bring calm to both countries. Israel is demanding the full implementation of a long-standing UN resolution in which Hezbollah militants are required to withdraw north of Lebanon’s Litani river. This would essentially create a buffer zone clear of the Iran-backed gunmen whom Israel does not want on its northern border. Hezbollah has already pulled back some of its elite Radwan fighters a few miles back from the frontier, Israeli military officials say.
‘We will not withdraw’
But the Lebanese group is unlikely to agree to a full withdrawal north of the Litani, which lies around 18 miles from the border. It came after Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, began a tour of the Middle East this week, including stops in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
His trip follows a visit to Israel by White House senior adviser Amos Hochstein, who arrived in Israel on Thursday in an urgent bid to prevent a new Israel-Lebanon war. Israeli officials have said that they will escalate against Hezbollah if the militants do not withdraw further north. “There is only one possible result – a new reality in the northern arena, which will enable the secure return of our citizens,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, told Mr Hochstein. “We will not tolerate the threats posed by the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, and we will ensure the security of our citizens,” he added.

EU foreign policy chief warns against Lebanon getting dragged into conflict
CAIRO (Reuters)/January 6, 2024
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell sounded the alarm on Saturday about Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict in a spillover from Israel's war with Hamas. Borrell, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said it was imperative to avoid a regional escalation in the Middle East, and warned Israel that "nobody will win from a regional conflict". He was commenting at a new conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati following talks with top government officials to discuss events in and around Gaza, including the impact of the war and the situation at the Israeli-Lebanese border. "We are seeing a worrying intensification of exchange of fire across the Blue Line," Borrell said. The current demarcation line between the two countries is known as the Blue Line, a frontier mapped by the United Nations that marks the line to which Israeli forces withdrew when they left south Lebanon in 2000.

Israel and Hezbollah are on the brink of wider war after a week of threats and attacks
CBC/January 6, 2024
In many ways, it feels as though Israel and Hezbollah have been at war for months already. Almost constant, daily artillery and missile fire across the border with Lebanon has left dozens of soldiers and civilians dead on both sides. More than 80,000 Israeli civilians within range of the fighting have been uprooted from their homes and a drone strike Tuesday in Hezbollah's heartland of southern Beirut has pushed the temperature of the conflict to the boiling point. Leaders in both Israel's government and Hezbollah's militia are keenly aware that a destructive war involving a possible ground invasion by Israel and the use of long range, heavy rockets by Hezbollah on Israeli cities would have momentous and devastating implications for both sides. Nonetheless, escalation has never felt more possible than it has this week, following the killing of Hamas deputy commander Saleh al-Arouri in a drone strike that bore all the hallmarks of an Israeli assassination hit. Twice in the four days since al-Arouri's killing, on Wednesday and again on Friday, Hezbollah's leader and senior cleric Hassan Nasrallah has appeared on video to warn that Israel's presumed attack on Lebanon will not go unanswered. He vowed retaliation at the time and place of his group's choosing. "The response is undoubtedly coming," Nasrallah said in Friday's speech. "We will not remain silent about a violation of this level because this means that all of Lebanon will be exposed."
Escalation Risk
Lebanese political analyst and Hezbollah researcher Amal Saad told CBC News she believes Nasrallah will follow through on the threat. "The response is going to be very soon," she said. "The deterrent value would be totally undermined if Hezbollah didn't respond soon, because Israel has declared its intent to keep on targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials in Lebanon."Things are moving at a very fast pace," she added. Saad is a lecturer at Cardiff University's School of Law and Politics in the U.K. Hezbollah, the most powerful military player in Lebanon, is a political and military entity that answers to Iran and is a sworn enemy of both Israel and the United States. Boasting the best-funded and well-armed militia in the region, Hezbollah has the means to make good on Nasrallah's threats. The group wields a powerful military arsenal, far in excess of what Israel has been confronted with in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Some reports suggest the militia could field more than 100,000 fighters and is equipped with more than 100,000 missiles and rockets, with some capable of delivering enormous 1,000-pound (450 kg) warheads. Potentially, that's enough to devastate Israeli cities and cause major chaos and destruction throughout the country. But Saad says she believes any retaliation ordered by Nasrallah would be calibrated so that it would deliver a political message but not necessarily compel Israel to respond with an even more vicious counter attack. "I think the response will be an escalation, but below the threshold of high-intensity warfare, meaning all-out, full-scale war, which would elicit the kind of response that would compel Israel to bomb Beirut area," said Saad. The killing of al-Arouri marks the first time a senior Hamas official has been targeted outside of Palestinian territory, and while the attack may not explicitly have been aimed at Hezbollah, it occurred in the midst of one of its Beirut strongholds.
Close Connections
Nasrallah routinely refers to Hamas as being part of an "axis of resistance," an informal alliance of groups and states opposed to Israel and other Western powers in the Middle East. Analysts believe Iran is the ringleader and provides much of the arms and funding, not just to Hezbollah but also to Houthi militias in Yemen. Their fighters have been firing rockets and attacking ships near the Red Sea as part of an effort to disrupt Israel's economy and impact global trade. Hezbollah and Israel fought a ferocious month-long war in 2006 that killed more than 1,200 Lebanese civilians and 158 Israelis, and ended with a UN-brokered settlement and peacekeepers along the Israel-Lebanon border. A much lower-intensity shooting war flared up again after Hamas's widespread attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, featuring shelling and artillery strikes across the border from both sides. Thus far, however, there has been no indication that either Israel's government or Hezbollah's leadership wants to engage in head-to-head ground combat. In October, Israeli officials took the precautionary move of evacuating some 80,000 people from cities and communities within artillery range of Hezbollah forces, but the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure to get them back into their homes. Israel has demanded that Hezbollah forces retreat to the north of the Litani River, which is roughly 20 kilometres from the border fence. In December, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hezollah must comply or Israel would "act with all the means at its disposal" to push the Hezbollah forces back. Gallant returned to the border area Friday and after meeting with military commanders issued another statement saying "we prefer the path of a political settlement but we are close to the point where the hourglass will turn." This week, even before the drone hit on al-Arouri, the United States had dispatched its special envoy, Amos Hochstein, to try to lower the tension and work with Lebanon's government to try to find a solution to the border standoff.
Avoiding Escalation
Despite Nasrallah's fiery rhetoric and the Israeli threats, both sides have compelling reasons to avoid further escalation. Lebanon is facing an acute economic crisis and there appears to be little interest in going to war with Israel, meaning Hezbollah could risk a significant public backlash. While Hezbollah forces are formidable, some analysts believe they could still expect to face substantial losses in any ground war involving Israeli troops equipped with modern Western-made weapons. And Iran is also unlikely to want to waste Hezbollah, one of its most valuable military assets, in a futile fight. For Israel, the risks of a wider war are equally serious, says Saad, the Lebanon analyst. With its war against Hamas in Gaza shaping up to be a messy, prolonged fight, Israel's military resources would be stretched thin. "I believe ... it's impossible for Israel to fight on two fronts. No army in the world, especially of Israel's size, can do that," she told CBC News. The dynamic has reinforced the uneasy standoff that's endured for the past three months, but with this week's drone strike, it may now be on the verge of disintegrating.

Israel, Hezbollah exchange fire across Lebanon border amid alarm over Gaza war spillover
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT/ISTANBUL, Jan 6 (Reuters)/January 6, 2024
Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday it had fired rockets at Israel and its arch-foe said it had struck a "terrorist cell" in retaliation, as top U.S. and EU diplomats visited the region to seek ways to halt spillover from the war. Shortly after rocket sirens sounded across northern Israel, the Israeli military said that "approximately 40 launches from Lebanon toward the area of Meron in northern Israel were identified". There were no reports of casualties or damage. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the European Union's senior diplomat Josep Borrell were both in the region on separate diplomatic missions to stop the three-month-old Gaza war spilling over into Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Red Sea shipping lanes. Israel and Hezbollah often trade fire across the Lebanese border, the West Bank is seething with emotion and the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen seem determined to continue attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes until Israel stops bombarding Gaza. Hezbollah said it had hit a key Israeli observation post with 62 rockets as a "preliminary response" to the killing of Hamas' deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri on Tuesday. Tensions have been especially high since Arouri was killed by a drone in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hamas' Lebanese ally Hezbollah, in an attack widely attributed to Israel. Israel's military said it had responded to the rocket attacks with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strike on "the terrorist cell responsible for the launches toward the area of Metula". Israeli fighter jets and troops also struck a series of Hezbollah targets in the areas of Ayta ash Shab, Yaroun, and Ramyeh in southern Lebanon, it said, hitting a launch post, military sites, and "terrorist infrastructure".Lebanon's Jama'a Islamiya said later on Saturday it had also fired two volleys of rockets at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, in the third operation claimed by the hardline Sunni Muslim group since Oct. 7.
WESTERN DIPLOMACY
Blinken was meeting the leaders of Turkey and Greece on Saturday at the start of a week-long trip that will also take him to Israel, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. During two hours of talks in Istanbul, Blinken discussed the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza with Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign ministry said. A U.S. official said Blinken then held talks with Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel's military actions in Gaza. Turkey, which unlike most of its NATO allies does not class Hamas as a terrorist organisation, has offered to mediate in the Gaza conflict. Blinken also hopes to make progress during his tour on how Gaza could be governed if and when Israel achieves its aim of eradicating Hamas. After meeting the Lebanese foreign minister in Beirut, the EU's senior diplomat Borrell expressed alarm about the exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah and said it was important that Lebanon not be dragged into the Gaza conflict. "Diplomatic channels have to stay open. War is not the only option – it's the worst option," Borrell said, adding that he was also alarmed by increased violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Israel's onslaught began after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel on Oct. 7, with 1,200 people killed and 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. The offensive, aimed at wiping out the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, has so far killed 22,722 people, according to Palestinian health officials, and devastated the densely populated enclave of 2.3 million people. At least 122 Palestinians have been killed and 256 others injured in Gaza in the past 24 hours alone, they said on Saturday.
HEAVY SHELLING
The official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported on Saturday that 18 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli attack on a house east of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. In the West Bank village of Beit Rima, the Palestinian health ministry said a 17-year-old was shot dead by Israeli forces and four other people were injured. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported heavy shelling in Khan Younis on Saturday near the Al-Amal Hospital. Shrapnel flew into the medical facility amid the sound of heavy gunfire from drones, it said in a post on social media platform X. The traumatised residents of Gaza, most of whose population has been displaced by the bombardment, are facing a devastating humanitarian crisis, with food, medicine and fuel supplies running low. Standing outside a morgue in Khan Younis on Saturday, 11-year-old Mahmoud Awad said his parents and siblings had been killed by Israeli airstrikes. "We were in al-Shati refugee camp and they (Israeli army) dropped fliers saying that Gaza is a battlefield, so we fled to Khan Younis because it was a safe place, and they still bombed us," he said.
Israel denies targeting civilians in its campaign to eradicate Hamas but says the militants deliberately embed themselves and their infrastructure among civilian populations to make it harder for Israel's military to strike.
Israel has released videos and photos in support of its claim. Hamas denies this accusation. Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, is backed by Iran. Other Iranian-backed militants have hit U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria in what they call revenge for Israel's offensive.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 06-07/2024
Israel army says Hamas command structure ‘dismantled’ in north Gaza
AFP/January 07, 2024
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Saturday it had “completed the dismantling” of Hamas’s command structure in the northern Gaza Strip. “We have completed the dismantling of the Hamas military framework in the northern Gaza Strip,” army spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters.
He added that Palestinian militants were now operating in the area only sporadically and “without commanders.”“Now the focus is on dismantling Hamas in the center of the Gaza Strip and in the south of the Gaza Strip,” he said, while acknowledging that the task will take time. Israel vowed to crush Gaza’s Hamas rulers after they carried out the deadliest attack in the country’s history on October 7. It resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel.
Israel responded by bombarding the territory and sending in ground forces, killing at least 22,722 people, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Speaking about military efforts to dismantle Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip, Hagari said “we will do it in a different way” without elaborating. “The refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip are crowded and full of terrorists,” he said. In the south, the large urban landscape of Khan Yunis has an elaborate underground network of tunnels, he said. “It takes time.”Earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had directed the army to “eliminate Hamas,” return all the hostages and ensure that Gaza will “never again be a threat to Israel.”“The war must not be stopped until we achieve all of the goals,” he said in a statement.

Netanyahu vows ‘complete victory’ as more bombs hit Gaza
AFP/January 06, 2024
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israel kept up its bombing of Gaza on Saturday as its war on Hamas approached its fourth month, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to achieve “complete victory” over the Palestinian militants. AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting. Victims of the bombardment were brought to the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where relatives and mourners gathered. One of them, Mohamed Awad, wept over the body of a 12-year-old boy and counted the deaths in his family. A defiant Netanyahu vowed that Israel would continue its campaign to “eliminate Hamas, return our hostages and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel.” “We have to put everything aside... until the complete victory is achieved,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel had “completed the dismantling of the Hamas military framework in the northern Gaza Strip” and would now focus on the center and the south. The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel launched by Hamas on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Israeli military excavators demolish the house of the Palestinian Shuqairat family, which was reportedly built without a construction permit, in the Jabal Mukaber neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on January 3, 2024. (AFP) The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel, including at least 24 believed to have been killed. In response, Israel is carrying out a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that have killed at least 22,722 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry. In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said it had recorded more than 120 deaths over the past 24 hours. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant presented Israel’s first plan for the “day after” on Thursday, though it has not yet been adopted by Israel’s war cabinet. However, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official said on Saturday that Gaza’s future “is determined by the Palestinian people, not Israel.” “All scenarios proposed by the occupation politicians and leaders are doomed to fail,” said Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the PLO executive committee. Top Western diplomats were in the region on Saturday as part of a fresh push to boost the flow of aid into Gaza and address mounting fears of a wider conflict. In Beirut, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell met a senior figure in the political wing of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah as part of efforts to Lebanon being drawn into the war, an EU source confirmed. Borrell held talks with the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, Lebanese media reported. The EU is “engaging in diplomatic dialogue with all relevant political representatives who have influence on the situation on the ground or have a stake in it,” the EU source said. The Hamas-allied Hezbollah movement has been trading near-daily fire with Israeli forces since early October and earlier fired a barrage of dozens of rockets at an Israeli military base in response to the killing of a senior Hamas figure in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut on Tuesday. Before heading to Saudi Arabia, Borrell called for a redoubling of peace efforts.
“Israel has declared a goal to eradicate Hamas. There must be another way to eradicate Hamas that doesn’t... create so many people getting killed,” he said. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Greece as part of a tour that will take him to several Arab states ahead of talks in Israel and the occupied West Bank next week. Blinken said he wants to make sure the conflict in the Middle East “doesn’t spread.” “One of the real concerns is the border between Israel and Lebanon, and we want to do everything possible to make sure we see no escalation,” he added. Hezbollah said it had targeted the Israeli military’s Meron air control base with 62 missiles in its “initial response” to the killing of Saleh Al-Aruri, Hamas’s deputy leader, in Beirut. The Israeli army reported “approximately 40 launches from Lebanon” and said it struck Hezbollah “military sites” in response. By the afternoon, warning sirens had sounded seven times in northern Israel, the military said. Contacted by AFP, a military spokesperson confirmed the mountaintop base had been targeted but did not say whether it was damaged. There were no immediate reports of any casualties. Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the conflict as the scale of the destruction has triggered mass displacement and a deepening humanitarian crisis. With swathes of the territory reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths on Friday said “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable.”The World Health Organization says the majority of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages. In the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah, men clambered carefully around the concrete ruins and twisted rebar where Mohammad Al-Attar’s house stood before rockets that he blamed on Israel destroyed it. “There was no prior warning or anything,” Attar said, his hands stained grey from the debris. “There’s still the corpse of a little girl” underneath. Akram El-Shafei, a journalist, died at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis from wounds sustained in Gaza City in November. Shafei’s condition had initially improved, said relative Magda El-Shafei, but he “needed treatment” and there was “nothing” available.“He’s gone,” she told AFP. The World Health Organization says the majority of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages.

Palestinians rebury bodies exhumed from Gaza cemetery
AFP/January 07, 2024
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Bereaved Palestinians on Saturday reburied bodies exhumed from a cemetery in Gaza City, where the Israeli army has been leading a ground offensive against Hamas militants since late October, an AFP video showed. The footage from the cemetery in Al-Tuffah neighborhood showed bodies wrapped in bags and laid out on mounds of soil. Other bodies were strewn around smashed up graves, as a dozen men clad in masks worked with shovels to rebury them, the video showed. Hamas on Saturday accused the Israeli military of “destroying 1,100 graves” at the cemetery and “stealing 150 bodies of recently buried martyrs.” When reached for comment by AFP, the Israeli army said they were checking the claims without elaborating further. “We were surprised to see the bodies exhumed” on Saturday morning, said a local man surnamed Aliwa, who was among the people reburying the bodies. He declined to give his first name. Without offering evidence, he accused the Israeli army of “running over bodies” with a “bulldozer.” Imprinted in the soil near the graves were what looked like track marks. “We are currently retrieving the corpses present in the cemetery,” he said, adding that only a “small number” of bodies had been identified. The war began on October 7 with an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel. Israel responded by bombarding the territory and sending in ground forces, killing at least 22,722 people, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

What Israel’s deadly attack on a Gaza refugee camp says about IDF’s conduct, choice of weaponry
ANAN TELLO/Arab NewsJanuary 06, 2024
LONDON: Just hours before midnight on Christmas Eve, an Israeli airstrike on Maghazi refugee camp, east of Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, killed more than 70 people, including 12 women and seven children, according to figures from the nearby Al-Aqsa Hospital. The UN estimates the strike killed at least 86, making it one of the single most deadly strikes of the entire war, devastating an overcrowded residential area and burying whole families under tons of rubble. The Palestinian Red Crescent said that the work of rescue teams was further hindered by damage to roads between the camps of Bureij, Maghazi and Nuseirat. Shortages of fuel to power machinery also meant that rescuers had to search for survivors with their bare hands. Medecins Sans Frontieres tweeted on Dec. 25 that Deir Al-Balah’s Al-Aqsa Hospital had admitted 209 injured and 131 dead following Christmas Eve strikes on both Maghazi and Bureij. Hamas, the Palestinian group that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, described the attack as “a horrific massacre” and “a new war crime.” For its part, the Israeli government has called the bombing a “regrettable mistake” due to the use of “an incorrect munition.”In a statement on Dec. 28, the Israel Defense Forces said that a preliminary investigation by a special committee revealed that the bombing had destroyed buildings that were not military targets, killing and injuring dozens of civ. The Israeli military added that the “extensive collateral damage that could have been avoided” in Maghazi was due to the use of improper ordnance. “The type of munition did not match the nature of the attack,” an Israeli military official told the state-owned broadcaster Kan. The IDF vowed “to draw lessons from the incident.” However, in an interview with Sky News on Dec. 29, Eylon Levy, an official Israeli spokesperson, said that his government refused to apologize for “waging this campaign to bring the Hamas terror regime to justice.”He stressed that the “war against Hamas” would continue until the militant group surrendered and released the remaining hostages it took on Oct. 7, when it carried out brutal massacres and a series of kidnappings across southern Israel. Hamas killed an estimated 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 240 hostages, including many foreign nationals, 110 of whom were subsequently released in a series of hostage and prisoner swaps.
INNUMBERS
86 Number of people killed in the attack on Maghazi, with some estimates as high as 106.
33K People living in Maghazi refugee camp prior to the conflict, according to the UN.
0.6% Area of the densely populated Maghazi refugee camp
22K+ Death toll in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Levy described the killing of civilians in Maghazi as a “regrettable mistake,” adding that “mistakes” are “inevitable” in war. Tahani Mustafa, a senior Palestine analyst at International Crisis Group, believes official statements like these are part of Israel’s preferred public relations strategy. “It is the usual Israeli defense of ‘we made mistakes but didn’t mean to’ in order to mitigate the negative publicity Israel is increasingly receiving that is becoming harder to justify and cover up,” she told Arab News. “They did what they did when they thought they could get away with it, and when they couldn’t, they made futile statements like this to mitigate any PR fallout.” She added: “If previous experience is anything to go by, any internal investigation will be immediately dropped once public interest wanes.”
Furthermore, Maghazi is not the only refugee camp in Gaza to have suffered Israeli bombardment in recent weeks, with Bureij and Nuseirat also coming under fire. On Dec. 29 alone, Israeli bombing in central Gaza killed at least 100 Palestinians and injured 150 others.
Such attacks indicate that the mistakes acknowledged by the Israeli military and government officials are either commonplace, or that the IDF takes a cavalier approach to the lives of civilians and the potential for collateral damage.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced concerns about the bombardment of central Gaza and its densely populated camps.
Founded in 1949, Maghazi originally had a population of about 2,500, which later grew to around 30,000, according to statistics from the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA.
Today, owing to the displacement of Gazan families fleeing Israel’s assault, which has killed more than 22,000 people since Oct. 7, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, the camp’s population has climbed to about 100,000.
While the Christmas Eve strike was the deadliest in Maghazi’s history, it was by no means the first. Airstrikes on Oct. 17, Nov. 5 and Dec. 6 also pummeled the densely populated camp — once again testing the veracity of Israeli claims that the Dec. 24 strike was a one-off mistake.
The first strike in October hit an UNRWA-operated school, killing six people. The Hamas-run Health Ministry also reported that the November strikes killed at least 45 people. Reports from the Guardian and Al Jazeera said that the camp’s only bakery was also destroyed.
The Israeli military is continuing its ground offensive, despite international pleas for an immediate and lasting ceasefire. Calls from Washington to scale back its onslaught, or at least prioritize the preservation of civilian life, also appear to have been disregarded.
US President Joe Biden warned on Dec. 12 that owing to its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, Israel was losing international support. Two days later, he told reporters that Israeli forces must “be focused on how to save civilian lives — not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful.”
The day after Christmas, IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari announced that Israeli forces had “expanded the combat to the area known as the Central Camps.”Humanitarian organizations, UN agencies and many Western media outlets have confirmed that the Israeli military has been attacking areas that it had previously encouraged displaced Gazans to flee to and had designated as “safe.”An analysis by CNN found that the IDF had carried out strikes in Rafah, which Israel had previously labeled as a safe zone for refugees. The Dec. 21 report also showed that Israeli statements identifying “safe zones” or “danger zones” are often contradictory and confusing. Given the disruption to electricity and telecommunications caused by the conflict, many Palestinians are unable to view maps delineating these zones, which can only be accessed using QR codes printed on leaflets.
Criticism of the IDF’s conduct in Gaza has not been reserved to the intensity of its air and ground raids but also its choice of weapons and ordnance. An investigation by The New York Times published on Dec. 21 found that the IDF has used US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs, which munitions experts say are unsuitable for use on densely populated areas. These bombs were dropped in an area of southern Gaza where Israel had ordered civilians to move for their “safety,” the investigation revealed. Those living in Maghazi can only hope for a pause in the fighting that will allow aid to enter the camp, which has been cut off from the surrounding region due to regular bombardment. However, Herzi Halevi, the IDF’s chief of staff, has said that the offensive in Gaza will last “many more months.”

Famine in Gaza ‘around the corner,’ as people face ‘highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded,’ UN relief chief says
Heather Chen and Eve Brennan, CNN/January 6, 2024
Famine is “around the corner” as people in Gaza face the “highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded,” according to UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths. Citing a death toll in the tens of thousands, attacks on medical facilities and a lack of functioning hospitals, Griffiths said in a statement issued Friday that Gaza had become “a place of death and despair.” “Hope has never been more elusive,” he added. A public health disaster is unfolding as infectious diseases spread in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over, Griffiths said, adding that around 180 Palestinian women “are giving birth daily amidst this chaos.”“Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence – while the world watches on,” Griffiths said in the statement issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Tens of thousands of Palestinians have died since Israel launched its war on Hamas in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, and up to 1.9 million people have been displaced since the beginning of the war, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Israel launched the war in response to Hamas’ murderous rampage on October 7 in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.“Meanwhile, rocket attacks on Israel continue, more than 120 people are still held hostage in Gaza, tensions in the West Bank are boiling, and the specter of further regional spillover of the war is looming dangerously close,” said Griffiths, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Young children face high risks of severe malnutrition as famine conditions increase, according to UNICEF. Survivors who spoke to CNN from the southern city of Rafah said basic necessities like fruits and vegetables have become unaffordable. Griffiths went on to urge parties to “meet all their obligations under international law, including to protect civilians and meet their essential needs, and to release all hostages immediately,” adding that the international community should “use all its influence to make this happen.”“We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity,” he added. “This war should never have started,” Griffiths said. “It’s long past time for it to end.”

UN warns Gaza 'uninhabitable' as war rages on
Agence France Presse/January 6, 2024
Israel bombed southern Gaza early Saturday as the U.N. warned the besieged Palestinian territory has been rendered "uninhabitable" by three months of war. The fighting, triggered by the October 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas militants, has sent tensions soaring across the region, and shows no signs of abating as the conflict slides into its fourth month on Sunday. Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have born the brunt of the violence amid widespread displacement, destruction and a deepening humanitarian crisis. With much of the territory already reduced to rubble, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Friday that "Gaza has simply become uninhabitable".AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes early Saturday on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari the Israeli army continues "to fight ... in the north, center and south" of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian man Abou Mohammed, 60, who fled to Rafah from the central Bureij refugee camp, told AFP that as the war nears its fourth month, Gaza's future appeared "dark and gloomy and very difficult."
Hospital 'overcrowded with displaced' -
The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, which allegedly resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel, including at least 24 believed to have been killed. In response, Israel has launched a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that have killed at least 22,600 people, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society on Friday reported shelling and drone fire in the area around Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis. It said seven displaced people, including a five-day-old baby, had been killed while sheltering in the compound. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the majority of the Palestinian territory's 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages. In central Gaza, a spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said: "We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe due to the spread of epidemics, with the hospital overcrowded with displaced people."A UN team on Friday delivered medical supplies to Gaza authorities in Khan Yunis, and WHO coordinator Sean Casey said it was "the first time we've been able to make this delivery in about 10 days." "Hospitals have been running short on some supplies," he said, adding that medical facilities were "working at two or three times their normal capacity."
The Israeli military on Saturday said its ground and air forces had "killed numerous terrorists ... and destroyed a number of tunnel shaft" in Khan Yunis over the past 24 hours. Israel says Hamas militants hide in a vast underground network as well as among civilians in schools and hospitals. The army said that during "a targeted raid" in Gaza City, now a largely devastated urban combat zone, troops had found military vests "concealed... in a medical clinic".
Diplomatic push -
Top Western diplomats were in the region as part of a fresh push to raise the flow of aid into Gaza and calm rising tensions. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on Saturday, where he was due to discuss the Gaza war with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Blinken will also visit several Arab states before heading to Israel and the occupied West Bank next week. During his visit, Blinken plans to discuss with Israeli leaders "immediate measures to increase substantially humanitarian assistance to Gaza", State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. The EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell was meeting Lebanese leaders on Saturday in Beirut for talks on "all aspects of the situation in and around Gaza." Germany's top diplomat, Annalena Baerbock, was also due to travel to the region on Sunday, a foreign ministry spokesman said. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, meanwhile, slammed remarks by two far-right Israeli ministers seeking to resettle Gazans outside the territory. "It's not up to Israel to determine the future of Gaza, which is Palestinian land," Colonna told CNN on Friday.

Blinken opens latest urgent Mideast tour in Turkey as fears grow that Gaza war may engulf region
ISTANBUL (AP)/Sat, January 6, 2024
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken kicked off his latest urgent Middle East diplomatic mission in Turkey on Saturday, as fears mount that Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza may explode into a broader conflict. Blinken’s fourth visit in three months comes amid worrying developments outside of Gaza, including in Lebanon, northern Israel, the Red Sea and Iraq, that have put intense strains on what had been a modestly successful U.S. push to prevent a regional conflagration in the weeks after the war began, and growing international criticism of Israel’s military operation. Blinken met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss what Turkey and others can do to exert influence, particularly on Iran and its proxies, to ease soaring tensions, speed up humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza and begin in earnest to plan for reconstruction and governance of postwar Gaza, much of which has been reduced to rubble by three months of intense Israeli bombardments. The immediate difficulty of Blinken’s task was underscored just hours before his talks with Erdogan as Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel, warning that the barrage was just an initial response to the targeted killing, presumably by Israel, of a top leader from the allied Hamas group in Lebanon’s capital earlier this week. Meanwhile, stepped-up attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have disrupted international trade and led to increased efforts on the part of the U.S. and its allies to patrol the area and respond to threats, including possibly taking direct action against the group at its bases in Yemen. The Houthis have carried out at least two dozen attacks in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza just since Dec. 19, which have further heightened tensions and raised risks for the global economy. In Istanbul, U.S. officials said Blinken would be seeking Turkish buy-in, or at least consideration, of potential monetary or in-kind contributions to reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in a proposed multi-national force that could operate in or adjacent to the territory. Turkey, and Erdogan in particular, have been harshly critical of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the prosecution of the war and the impact it has had on Palestinian civilians.
In addition, officials said, Blinken will stress the importance the U.S. places on Turkey ratifying Sweden’s membership in NATO, a long-delayed process that the Turks have said they will complete soon. Sweden’s accession to the alliance is seen as one critical response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
From Turkey, Blinken will travel to Turkish rival and fellow NATO ally Greece to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at his residence on the Mediterranean island of Crete. Mitsotakis and his government have been supportive of U.S. efforts to prevent the Gaza war from spreading and have signaled their willingness to assist should the situation deteriorate further. Greece has also shown patience in waiting for the delivery of advanced U.S. fighter jets as the issue of Sweden’s accession to NATO is worked out with Turkey. Blinken will end his Saturday in Jordan, which apart from Israel has been the secretary’s most frequent stop on his recent Middle East tours. Jordan will be the first Arab nation on Blinken's current tour, and will be followed by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday. Blinken will then visit Israel and the West Bank on Tuesday and Wednesday before wrapping up the trip in Egypt. “We don’t expect every conversation on this trip to be easy,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said shortly before Blinken departed Washington late Thursday. “There are obviously tough issues facing the region and difficult choices ahead. But the secretary believes it is the responsibility of the United States of America to lead diplomatic efforts to tackle those challenges head-on, and he’s prepared to do that in the days to come.” As well as pressing Israel for dramatic increases in humanitarian aid to Gaza, a shift toward less intense military operations and a concerted effort to rein in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by Jewish settlers, Blinken will be urging reluctant Gulf Arab nations to work with the U.S. on the future of Gaza.

Blinken: M. East nations need to use influence to prevent 'endless cycle of violence'
CHANIA, Greece (Reuters)/January 6, 2024
Middle Eastern nations need to use their influence over regional actors to ensure the Gaza conflict is contained and prevent "an endless cycle of violence," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday. Blinken spoke late in the day after meeting the leaders of Turkey and Greece at the start of a week-long trip aimed at calming tensions that have spiked since Israel's war with Hamas began in October. It is in the interests of virtually all nations in the Middle East to contain the fighting, Blinken told reporters. "We want to make sure that countries who feel that way are also using their ties, using their influence, using their relationships with some of the actors that might be involved to keep a lid on things, to make sure that we're not seeing the spread of conflict," he said before flying to Jordan. Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday it had fired rockets at Israel, and its arch-foe said it had struck a "terrorist cell" in retaliation. Blinken said it was very important that Israel had security in the north of the country. "From the perspective of Israel, it's clearly not interested, does not want escalation ... but they also have to be fully prepared to defend themselves," he said. Blinken, who will also visit Arab states, Israel and the occupied West Bank, said if efforts to settle the crisis failed the outcome would be "an endless cycle of violence ... and lives of insecurity and conflict for people in the region." He also said he would be looking at what could be done to maximize the protection of civilians in Gaza and increase deliveries of humanitarian assistance. "Far too many Palestinians have been killed, especially children," he said. The war began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed 22,700 Palestinians, according to Palestinian officials, and the conflict has spilled into the West Bank, Lebanon and Red Sea shipping lanes. Blinken earlier met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, a strong critic of Israel's military actions in Gaza. Blinken and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had earlier discussed Gaza, as well as Turkey's process to ratify Sweden's membership of the NATO military alliance, Turkey's foreign ministry said. U.S. officials have been frustrated by the length of the process, but are confident Ankara will soon approve Sweden's accession after it won the Turkish parliament's backing last month, said a senior State Department official traveling with Blinken, speaking on condition of anonymity. U.S. lawmakers have held up the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey until it signs off on Swedish membership.
BLINKEN VISITS GREECE
Blinken later traveled to Crete where he met Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Fellow NATO member Greece is awaiting U.S. Congress approval of a sale of F-35 fighter jets. Blinken stressed the importance of Greece's strong alliance with Washington, while Mitsotakis said the two countries could work together to help safeguard security in a turbulent region. Greece has condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and backs Cyprus' initiative for a maritime corridor to help deliver more aid to the enclave. It believes it can play an active role on that front due to its historic ties with the Arab world. The U.S. official said Turkey has relationships with many parties in the conflict, a reference to its ties to U.S. adversary Iran and Hamas. Unlike the U.S., Turkey does not view Hamas as a terrorist group and hosts some of its members. Blinken also hopes to make progress in talks on how Gaza could be governed if and when Israel achieves its aim of eradicating Hamas. Washington wants countries in the region, including Turkey, to play a role in reconstruction, governance and potentially security in the Gaza Strip, which has been run by Hamas since 2007, the official said.

US military says it downs another drone over Red Sea
AFP/January 06, 2024
WASHINGTON: US military forces shot down a drone early Saturday over the Red Sea in international waters near several commercial vessels, the Pentagon said. The incident came just days after a 12-nation group led by the US warned Houthi rebels in Yemen against continuing their attacks on Red Sea shipping. The US Central Command said in a social media post Saturday that “an unmanned aerial vehicle launched from Iranian-backed Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen was shot down in self-defense” by the USS Laboon, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. It said no one was hurt.The incident occurred in the southern Red Sea “in the vicinity of multiple commercial vessels,” it said. The Laboon, part of a carrier strike group deployed to the region shortly after the Israel-Hamas war broke out, previously downed drones believed fired by the Houthi rebels. The rebels have launched more than 100 drone and missile strikes toward targets in the Red Sea and Israel since the war erupted on October 7, according to Pentagon figures. The Houthis say they are targeting Israel and Israeli-linked vessels to push for a stop to the offensive in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is battling Hamas militants. The attacks are endangering a transit route that carries up to 12 percent of global trade, prompting the United States to set up a multinational naval task force to protect Red Sea shipping. On Wednesday, the US-led group jointly warned the Houthi rebels of unspecified consequences unless they immediately halt their sea attacks. But Danish shipping giant Maersk, citing the highly volatile situation, said Friday that it would divert all vessels around Africa instead of using the Red Sea and Suez Canal for the “foreseeable future.”

Red Sea War: Houthi drone boat detonation opens a new chapter
Tom Sharpe/The Telegraph/ January 6, 2024
Yesterday, the ongoing disruption of shipping in the Red Sea took an interesting turn. The Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV), a threat well known to anyone who has operated in the Gulf in the last few years – and very well known to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, some of whom have taken up residency on the bottom as a result – made its appearance in the southern Red Sea.So far, details are scant. Vice Admiral Cooper, the US Fifth Fleet commander based in Bahrain, said: “This was a one-way attack, unmanned surface vessel that had launched from Houthi-controlled territory, had transited out to international shipping lanes, clearly with the intent to do harm. Fortunately, it detonated. It’s unclear who the target vessel was…It’s a significant development for Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), the international naval effort whose aim seems to be something like “providing sufficient reassurance to shipping companies to restore the freedom of navigation in the Red Sea”. First, it’s clear that the Houthis show no sign of slowing down, despite a joint statement from the governments of the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore and the United Kingdom on 3 December that this must not continue. The entirely defensive nature of OPG coupled with ‘stern warnings’ isn’t deterring the Houthis. Second, the USV explosion will not help reassure the major shipping companies such as Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd and Evergreen who have elected to route around the Cape of Good Hope rather than run the Houthi gauntlet through the Bab-el-Mandeb chokepoint. For the big shippers, the strait truly is living up to its name: the Gate of Grief. It is important to note that despite the big companies currently not making the transit, many ships still are. Whilst container shipping numbers are down 20 per cent, overall numbers are down by only a few percent. This reflects the complexity of the shipping business and the sheer number of vessels of all sizes and types who are happy to take the risk, do not believe themselves to be under threat and in some (probably illegal) cases, may even be assured of protection. However, whilst ‘the big ones’ are wobbling, short-term rates for container shipping have increased by 173% from mid-December. This and other costly trends are only going one way and will do so until the situation settles. The arrival of USVs on the scene will not help.
Third, the USV provides a tactical dilemma for the warships of OPG who are tasked to defend against the differing threats there. I postulated a while ago that these ships will be operating in air defence boxes up the eastern side of the Southern Red Sea in which they have responsibility for providing cover from missiles and drones, and that occasionally, they would be detached to provide escort cover for specific ships. This methodology was confirmed yesterday by Admiral Cooper. The USV threat changes a couple of things. First, it puts more emphasis on the requirement for persistent fast jet and helicopter cover – these are the best ways to deal with USVs. Aviation fuel bills for OPG just went up. Second, the ships in the boxes nearest where this threat is based now have to deal with both air and surface threats. This can be done concurrently but with as little as thirty seconds warning time for the very fastest missile threat, it is not easy.
On its own, a single USV isn’t a problem. However, send a swarm of them and it is a different matter. And swarm tactics are Navy Warfare 101 for the country that is both training and supplying the Houthis. Added to this is the vast amount of small boat traffic zipping around there anyway, fishing, smuggling and who knows what else. Under normal conditions you have to be on your guard because these things are fast, low in the water and don’t paint well on radar, but it used to be reasonably safe to assume that they’re not packed with explosives and heading for you. Now, the warships will have to assume that they are.
Finally, and perhaps most important, is the nature of the damage a USV would cause if it got through compared to the Houthis’ missiles. The latest missile and drone figures (courtesy of @Schizointel) show that in the last months, the Houthis have fired 14 anti-ship ballistic missiles, one anti-ship cruise missile, six land attack cruise missiles and 72 drones. Of these, the ships of OPG have defeated six ASBMs, six LACMs and 60 drones. This impressive strike rate of 77 per cent shows two things. First, the ships there are doing an outstanding job in a complex multi-threat environment and second, there is no such thing as a ‘probability-of-kill’ of 100 per cent. Hollywood leads you to believe there might be, real warfare does not. So far, the missiles that have snuck through and struck targets have not been catastrophic. The fire on the chemical tanker MV Strinda on 12 December was probably the worst but the crew did an excellent job to bring it under control, no one died and there was no spillage. However, if a USV hits a vessel it will likely hole it at the waterline. It will be carrying a large explosive charge and even a double-hulled vessel is likely to be pierced. Best case, whatever is behind that hole spills into the Red Sea. Worst case, the ship sinks and people die. If the ship is an oil tanker or gas carrier, you’re looking at a major explosion. Clearly, a 77 per cent reassurance isn’t enough for the major carriers just yet. So we need to ask: what is enough, how many ships and aircraft does that take, and how long can it be sustained? While OPG remains entirely defensive in the face of this steady stream of attacks, it’s hard to say that a sustainably reassuring solution is achievable, no matter how much excellent work goes into improving civil-military liaison at sea. So the Houthis will continue to excel at keeping their activity sub-threshold, sapping resources and sowing discord. It’s a very effective operation.
Meanwhile, quite apart from destructive warfare from the Houthis, actual pirates are making a comeback. The Houthi helicopter hijack of Galaxy Leader on 22 November stole the headlines but MV Ruen has been at anchor off Somaliland since 14 December. Yesterday another vessel was taken 460 nautical miles to the east in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The old game of seizing ships to make money, as opposed to making a political point, has begun again. That this is emerging as an issue for the first time since 2017 isn’t a coincidence. HMS Diamond, the British air defence destroyer on task in the Red Sea. Diamond has shot down a Houthi missile using her Sea Viper interceptors It will also probably not be that long before a mine is seen (either real or imagined) in the Bab-el-Mandeb. The main strait is several hundred metres deep, so not a good place for moored or seabed mines, but drifting unmoored floating mines can be released anywhere. They’re illegal under the Hague Convention, and ironically enough Iran did sign up to this back in 1907, but today’s mullahs haven’t felt bound by this in previous Gulf mining campaigns. The one good thing about drifting mines is that they’re much easier to see and dispose of (by simply shooting them so that they sink or blow up) than other kinds of mine. An even better method is destroying the craft that lays them. Even so, in big enough numbers mines could be a real problem. So OPG continues to take shape in the face of a diversifying threat, masses of ongoing liaison work across the vast shipping sector, countries joining, countries joining with caveats/agendas and countries who have vested interests there but are not bothering. We must give OPG time – the threat, merchant vessel complexity and political uncertainty demand it. Ultimately though, a purely defensive naval operation is unlikely to deliver sustainable reassurance. An operation which was allowed to make offensive strikes into Houthi territory, I believe, could deliver such reassurance: but thus far the White House has declined to cross that line and those allies which could act have decided to follow the US. In my view, the emergence of USVs won’t change that – but it will if one gets through.
Hope is not a strategy.
*Tom Sharpe is a former Royal Navy officer and surface combatant warship captain, with experience in the Gulf and Red Sea

Tired Zelensky looks too weak to achieve victory
Colonel Richard Kemp/The Telegraph/January 6, 2024
Today Volodymyr Zelensky faces the greatest test of his leadership, greater even than the days almost two years ago when Russian invasion forces rolled across the border. Back then, when he was offered a ride to safety by the West and asked for ammunition instead, he led a country united in a fight for its life.
That’s not so much the case now. There are growing public divisions between Zelensky and other political leaders, such as former President Petro Poroshenko and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, as a blame game builds over failures in the war so far. Worse still, Zelensky and the Commander-in-Chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, also seem to be in conflict. When Zaluzhnyi admitted that the war had reached a stalemate, Zelensky publicly rebuked him.Apart from the overriding need for national unity in war, this suggests that Ukraine lacks a clear strategy for the future prosecution of the conflict. Zelensky continues to insist that Ukraine will regain all its territory taken by Russia; although, after apparently over-promising on the summer offensive, he no longer seems to talk of timelines. Demoralised by the failure of that counter move, some are now talking in terms of some kind of peace accords. It has even been suggested that a potential peace agreement could be put to a referendum. When I was last in Kyiv, there was certainly discussion among some political leaders about the idea of a peace deal in which Russia would accept Ukrainian membership of Nato in exchange for guarantees that there would be no Ukrainian efforts to re-take occupied territory. Such talk might well be mere exasperation, but it is mana from heaven for Biden and many European leaders who want nothing more than such a peace agreement and as soon as possible. Any serious consideration of peace talks pretty much guarantees Ukraine’s defeat. Putting aside domestic politics in the US and EU that have, for the time being at least, essentially stifled further military aid, Biden and the Europeans have refused so far to equip Ukraine to win the war. That brake was applied out of the unfounded fear of provoking Russia into escalating against them. With any hint of peace talks in prospect from the Ukrainian side, to that would be added the new fear of Russia refusing to acquiesce or if it did, of pulling out. “Provocative” weapons supplies would dry up for the long term. Putin is only too well aware of that, which is why he has repeatedly said he would be prepared to talk peace.
Zelensky needs to put a stop to this. With this year’s elections unlikely to go ahead in the midst of conflict, he should form a national unity government to help control the increasingly corrosive domestic dissent that can only weaken Ukraine’s war effort. He should also set out his country’s unified strategic vision.
So far he has not put forward any real strategy – beyond suggesting that the centre of gravity would shift to Crimea and the Black Sea while defending against potential Russian advances in the east, which is not good enough if he expects the West to keep putting its hands in its pockets.Nor is it adequate to tell the West that Ukrainians are fighting not just for their own country, but for the whole of Europe which will itself be under threat from Moscow if Putin succeeds in this war. That is certainly true, but there is no sign that the US president or Western European leaders really believe it. If they did, they would long ago have pulled out all the stops to contain Putin and to supply Ukraine with the massive amounts of weaponry it needs to defeat Russia. Zelensky may be drained by almost two years of war, but he must now focus on regaining the initiative.

Russian forces repeated failed tank assaults 7 times across the same kill zone and were destroyed each time, says report
Alia Shoaib/Business Insider/January 6, 2024
A video shows a Russian armored column being destroyed as it tried to cross a Ukrainian forest. Russian forces made at least seven failed attempts to cross the same area in two weeks, Forbes said. The latest attack took place in a forest in Kharkiv Oblast. Russian forces repeatedly tried to commit a tank assault in the same part of a Ukrainian forest, despite being thwarted by Ukrainian forces every time, a report says. There is visual evidence of at least seven failed Russian assaults through the same area in northeastern Ukraine between December 14 and 28, Forbes reported. Drone footage published by Ukraine's defense department appears to show Russia's most recent failed assault. The video shows two Russian tanks followed by two BMP fighting vehicles entering an open area in a forest, which is already littered with what appears to be other wrecked vehicles. An explosion and artillery fire strike the tank at the front of the column. Around a dozen Russian soldiers, some of whom appear to be wounded, can be seen fleeing on foot and taking cover in nearby trenches as Ukrainian forces pick off the other armored vehicles. The attempts to cross the area were carried out by Russia's 25th and 138th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigades near the Ukrainian village of Synkivka, in Kharkiv Oblast, per Forbes. raine's 14th and 30th Mechanized Brigades were able to destroy the Russian invading columns each time, the outlet said, adding mines and preparing their defenses and laying in wait for the next attack. The 30th Brigade captured a group of Russian soldiers near Synkivka on January 1, although it is unclear whether they were the same ones that took part in the failed assault days prior. These raids by Russia are taking place frequently across the front line, often with no success. The areas where Russia is advancing are where they concentrate thousands of men and weaponry, such as in Avdiivka and Bakhmut, Forbes said.

Top US budget official warns of ‘dire’ situation on Ukraine aid
AP/January 06, 2024
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden’s top budget official warned in stark terms Friday about the rapidly diminishing time that lawmakers have to replenish US aid for Ukraine, as the fate of that money to Kyiv remains tied up in negotiations over immigration where a deal has so far been out of reach.
Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, stressed that there is no avenue to help Ukraine aside from Congress approving additional funding to help Kyiv as it fends off Russia in a war that is now nearly two years old. While the Pentagon has some limited authority to help Kyiv absent new funding from Capitol Hill, “that is not going to get big tranches of equipment into Ukraine,” Young said Friday. While the administration still has presidential drawdown authority, which allows it to pull weapons from existing US stockpiles and send them quickly to Ukraine, officials have decided to forgo that authority because Congress has not approved additional money to essentially backfill that equipment — a move that Young said was a “very tough decision.” The US sent a $250 million weapons package to Ukraine late last month, which officials say was likely the last package because of the lack of funding. Young also detailed the impact that a lack of additional US aid would have on Ukraine aside from its military capabilities, such as Kyiv being able to pay its civil servants to ensure that its government can continue to function amid Russia’s barrage. “Yes, Kyiv might have a little time from other donors to make sure they can keep their war footing, keep the civil service, but what happens in the (European Union), in other NATO allies, if the US pulls out their support?” Young said during a breakfast with journalists Friday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “I’m very concerned that it’s not just the United States’ resources that are necessary for Kyiv to stop Putin. It is: What message does that send to the rest of the world? And what will their decisions be if they see the United States not step up to the plate?”Young, a veteran congressional budget staffer, added that the situation was “dire” and “certainly, we’ve bypassed my comfort level” in the time that has gone by since Congress greenlighted new funding for Ukraine. Biden requested a smaller tranche of new aid to Ukraine in September, but then went to Congress with a sweeping national security spending request in late October that included roughly $60 billion in new funding for Ukraine.
That ask from Biden also included about $14 billion in managing and caring for the high number of migrants who continue to arrive at the southern border, and the president has said he is willing to negotiate with Republicans to accept some policy changes that would tighten asylum and other migration laws — a key demand of GOP lawmakers. Complicating the dynamics further is that Washington is confronting a pair of deadlines — the first on Jan. 19, the second on Feb. 2 — to fund the federal government or risk a shutdown at the start of a presidential election year. Key lawmakers have yet to reach topline spending figures for each federal agency, a necessary step before the broader bills funding the government can even be written. Young said she is not yet pessimistic, but that “I’m not optimistic” on the prospects of averting a shutdown in the coming weeks because of sharp new warnings from House Republicans, dozens of whom traveled to the border this week with Speaker Mike Johnson, that they were willing to shutter the government if they didn’t extract sufficient concessions on border policy from the White House. “The rhetoric this week has concerned me that that is the path that House Republicans are headed down, even though I will say I think leadership is working in good faith to prevent a shutdown,” Young said.Asked whether the emergency spending request with Ukraine should pass before legislation to fund the government, Young added: “I’ll take it however they can pass it. I mean, beggars shouldn’t be choosing. And I’ll take it, how they can pass it. It just needs to be passed.”

Turkish justice minister says 15 suspects jailed ahead of trial for spying for Israel
ISTANBUL (AP)/January 6, 2024
A court in Istanbul has ordered 15 of 34 people detained on suspicion of spying for Israel be held in prison awaiting trial, Turkey’s justice minister said late Friday. The suspects were arrested Tuesday for allegedly planning to carry out activities that included “reconnaissance” and “pursuing, assaulting and kidnapping” foreign nationals living in Turkey. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said in a social media post that 26 suspects were referred to the court on a charge of committing “political or military espionage” on behalf of Israeli intelligence. Eleven were released under judicial control conditions and eight were awaiting deportation. Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad is said to have recruited Palestinians and Syrian nationals inside Turkey as part of the operation against foreigners living in Turkey, state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The agency cited a prosecution document as saying the operation targeted “Palestinian nationals and their families … within the scope of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”One suspect allegedly collected information about Palestinian patients recently transferred to Turkey for health care. Turkey has accepted dozens of Palestinian patients from Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict. The suspects were detained in raids on 57 addresses in Istanbul and seven other provinces. Weeks earlier, the head of Israel’s domestic Shin Bet security agency said his organization was prepared to target Hamas anywhere, including in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Israel of “serious consequences” if it pressed ahead with its threat to attack Hamas officials on Turkish soil. Turkey and Israel had normalized ties in 2022 by reappointing ambassadors following years of tensions. But those ties quickly deteriorated after the Israel-Hamas war, with Ankara becoming one of the strongest critics of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Israel initially withdrew its diplomats from Turkey over security concerns and later announced it was recalling its diplomats for political reasons, citing “increasingly harsh statements” from Turkish officials. Turkey also pulled out its ambassador from Israel. Erdogan’s reaction to the Israel-Hamas war was initially fairly muted. But the Turkish leader has since intensified his criticism of Israel, describing its actions in Gaza as verging on “genocide.” He has called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be prosecuted for “war crimes” and compared him to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Erdogan, whose government has hosted several Hamas officials in the past, has also said the militant group — considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union — is fighting for the liberation of its lands and people.

Russia wants missiles from North Korea and Iran because they can exploit a gap in Ukraine's air defenses, analysts say
Business Insider/January 06/2024
The US said this week that Russia started using missiles it got from North Korea to attack Ukraine. The ISW experts noted that it's focus is on upping the quantity of ballistic missiles it can get. These have proved more difficult for Ukraine to shoot down than cruise missiles, the ISW noted.
Russia is likely looking for missiles from North Korea and Iran because they are a type that Ukraine struggles to intercept, according to military experts. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War noted in an update on Thursday that Russia's efforts to get missiles from its allies focused on ballistic missiles.
That type, as opposed to cruise missiles, "appear to be more effective at penetrating or avoiding Ukrainian air defenses," the ISW said. Ballistic missiles fly on a fixed trajectory, and tend to be faster than cruise missiles, which are more maneuverable but slower. The ISW compared Ukraine's air defenses' interception rate of Russian cruise missiles vs ballistic missiles since December 29, based on numbers shared by Ukrainian officials and reports. While Ukraine said it intercepted 149 of the 166 cruise missiles Russia fired — about 90% — it said Ukraine only stopped a "handful" of ballistic missiles.
It highlighted that Russia had found success with converting its anti-air missiles into weapons of attack: Ukraine struggles to block rounds fires from repurposed S-300 and S-400 systems, the ISW said. Ukraine isn't incapable of stopping ballistic missiles, the ISW said, noting some successes. On December 30, it shot down an Iskander-M missile during a less intense series of Russian missile and drone strikes, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, said at the time. Ukrainian forces also intercepted all Iskander-M and S-300/S-400 missiles fired at Kyiv by Russian forces on December 12, the Kyiv City Military Administration reported at the time. And the Ukrainian military used Western-supplied Patriot systems to intercept all 10 Kinzhal missiles fired by Russian forces in Ukraine on January 2, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported. The ISW concluded that Russia's success with ballistic missiles depends on how intense an attack they are part of. The report came after as National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday that Russia had acquired "several dozen" ballistic missiles from North Korea and used them on Ukraine. Citing US officials, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Russia was also in talks with Iran to buy short-range ballistic missiles with a view to better targeting Ukraine's infrastructure.

Top US budget official warns of ‘dire’ situation on Ukraine aid
AP/January 06, 2024
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden’s top budget official warned in stark terms Friday about the rapidly diminishing time that lawmakers have to replenish US aid for Ukraine, as the fate of that money to Kyiv remains tied up in negotiations over immigration where a deal has so far been out of reach.
Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, stressed that there is no avenue to help Ukraine aside from Congress approving additional funding to help Kyiv as it fends off Russia in a war that is now nearly two years old. While the Pentagon has some limited authority to help Kyiv absent new funding from Capitol Hill, “that is not going to get big tranches of equipment into Ukraine,” Young said Friday. While the administration still has presidential drawdown authority, which allows it to pull weapons from existing US stockpiles and send them quickly to Ukraine, officials have decided to forgo that authority because Congress has not approved additional money to essentially backfill that equipment — a move that Young said was a “very tough decision.” The US sent a $250 million weapons package to Ukraine late last month, which officials say was likely the last package because of the lack of funding. Young also detailed the impact that a lack of additional US aid would have on Ukraine aside from its military capabilities, such as Kyiv being able to pay its civil servants to ensure that its government can continue to function amid Russia’s barrage. “Yes, Kyiv might have a little time from other donors to make sure they can keep their war footing, keep the civil service, but what happens in the (European Union), in other NATO allies, if the US pulls out their support?” Young said during a breakfast with journalists Friday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “I’m very concerned that it’s not just the United States’ resources that are necessary for Kyiv to stop Putin. It is: What message does that send to the rest of the world? And what will their decisions be if they see the United States not step up to the plate?”Young, a veteran congressional budget staffer, added that the situation was “dire” and “certainly, we’ve bypassed my comfort level” in the time that has gone by since Congress greenlighted new funding for Ukraine. Biden requested a smaller tranche of new aid to Ukraine in September, but then went to Congress with a sweeping national security spending request in late October that included roughly $60 billion in new funding for Ukraine. That ask from Biden also included about $14 billion in managing and caring for the high number of migrants who continue to arrive at the southern border, and the president has said he is willing to negotiate with Republicans to accept some policy changes that would tighten asylum and other migration laws — a key demand of GOP lawmakers. Complicating the dynamics further is that Washington is confronting a pair of deadlines — the first on Jan. 19, the second on Feb. 2 — to fund the federal government or risk a shutdown at the start of a presidential election year. Key lawmakers have yet to reach topline spending figures for each federal agency, a necessary step before the broader bills funding the government can even be written. Young said she is not yet pessimistic, but that “I’m not optimistic” on the prospects of averting a shutdown in the coming weeks because of sharp new warnings from House Republicans, dozens of whom traveled to the border this week with Speaker Mike Johnson, that they were willing to shutter the government if they didn’t extract sufficient concessions on border policy from the White House. “The rhetoric this week has concerned me that that is the path that House Republicans are headed down, even though I will say I think leadership is working in good faith to prevent a shutdown,” Young said. Asked whether the emergency spending request with Ukraine should pass before legislation to fund the government, Young added: “I’ll take it however they can pass it. I mean, beggars shouldn’t be choosing. And I’ll take it, how they can pass it. It just needs to be passed.”

Biden compares 'sick' Trump to Nazis in 2024 campaign launch
Agence France Presse/January 06, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden launched his harshest attack yet on Donald Trump as he kickstarted his 2024 reelection campaign, accusing the Republican of echoing Nazi Germany and posing a threat to democracy. The 81-year-old Democrat branded his likely challenger in November a "loser" and "sick" in a speech on the eve of the third anniversary of the deadly January 6 Capitol attack by pro-Trump supporters. "He's willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power," Biden told supporters, alternating between whispers and furious shouts as he laid into the man he beat in 2020. Not only had the twice-impeached former president instigated the Capitol attack, but the tycoon and his followers were still embracing "political violence" ahead of the 2024 vote, said Biden. "He calls those who oppose him vermin. He talks about the blood of Americans being poisoned, echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany," he added. Biden chose a symbolic location for the speech near Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, the historic site where George Washington rallied American forces fighting their British colonial rulers nearly 250 years ago. He portrayed himself as a defender of America's institutions, warning that if Trump won a second term in the White House then democracy itself was at risk. "Trump's assault on democracy isn't just part of his past. It's what he's promising for the future," said Biden.
'Sick'-
Biden's full frontal attack on Trump came after criticism from some Democrats that the campaign has gotten off to a slow start. Biden lags behind Trump in some polls, and also has the worst approval rating of any modern president at this stage in his term of office. The president has failed to convince voters the economy is improving, while migration remains a headache and U.S. support for Ukraine and Israel remains divisive among voters. But perhaps Biden's biggest vulnerability is his age: as America's oldest-ever president, he has suffered a series of trips and verbal slips. Biden however warned that the biggest issue of all was Trump, saying that "your freedom is on the ballot." "Today I make this sacred pledge to you that the defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency." He accused Trump of being "sick" by laughing at a hammer attack on the husband of former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, and called him a "loser" over the 2020 election. Biden also lashed out at Trump for his "love letters" to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his "admiration" for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
'Threat to democracy' -
The Trump campaign swiftly hit back. "Biden is the real threat to democracy by weaponizing the government to go after his main political opponent and interfering in the 2024 election," Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told AFP. The ex-president, himself on the campaign trail, added that Biden was "fear-mongering." "Biden's record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure... That's why Crooked Joe is staging a pathetic, fear-mongering campaign event in Pennsylvania today," Trump told supporters in Sioux Center, Iowa. Trump was impeached but acquitted over the January 6 riots. The 77-year-old now faces a criminal trial on charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election. The U.S. states of Colorado and Maine have also barred him from standing in presidential primaries on the grounds that he had engaged in insurrection over the Capitol events. Trump has challenged both rulings. Biden's campaign has however identified Trump as their likely opponent, even though the official battle for the Republican nomination doesn't even start until the Iowa caucuses on January 15. His campaign push will continue Monday when the president visits a South Carolina church where a white supremacist shot dead nine Black parishioners in 2015. Analysts say the 2024 US presidential election remains a very tight race. "If the election were held tomorrow, President Biden would lose," William Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told AFP.

US defense secretary has been in hospital since Jan. 1
Associated Press/January 06, 2024
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been hospitalized since Monday, due to complications following a minor elective medical procedure, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said. It was the department's first acknowledgement that Austin had been admitted — five days earlier — to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Ryder said Friday that it's not clear when Austin will be released from the hospital, but said the secretary is "recovering well," adding that he expected "to resume his full duties" Friday. The Pentagon's failure to disclose Austin's hospitalization is counter to normal practice with other senior U.S. and Cabinet officials, including the president. The Pentagon Press Association, which represents media members who cover the Defense Department, sent a letter of protest to Ryder and Chris Meagher, the assistant defense secretary for public affairs.
"The fact that he has been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for four days and the Pentagon is only now alerting the public late on a Friday evening is an outrage," the PPA said in its letter. "At a time when there are growing threats to U.S. military service members in the Middle East and the U.S. is playing key national security roles in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is particularly critical for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making ability of its top defense leader." Iranian-backed militias have repeatedly launched drones, missiles and rockets at bases where U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq and Syria, prompting the Biden administration to strike back on a number of occasions. Those strikes often involve sensitive, top-level discussions and decisions by Austin and other key military leaders. The U.S. is also the chief organizer behind a new international maritime coalition using ships and other assets to patrol the southern Red Sea to deter persistent attacks on commercial vessels by Houthi militants in Yemen. In addition, the Biden administration — particularly Austin — has been at the forefront of the effort to supply weapons and training to Ukraine, and he's also been communicating frequently with the Israelis on their war against Hamas. Ryder said this has been an "evolving situation," and due to privacy and medical issues the department did not make Austin's absence public. He declined to provide any other details about Austin's medical procedure or health.
In a statement, Ryder said that at all times, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks "was prepared to act for and exercise the powers of the Secretary, if required."Austin, 70, spent 41 years in the military, retiring as a four-star Army general in 2016.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 06-07/2024
2024: The Year Iran Will Go Nuclear If Western Powers Do Not Act
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/January 06, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125886/125886/
If the US fails to remove Iran's nuclear capability -- and not just (literally) buy time to enable it -- the catastrophes that follow will surely go down as US President Joe Biden's legacy, as well as the legacy of those around him.
From the Iranian regime's perspective, the failure of the Western powers to counter its nuclear program serves as the most explicit endorsement one can provide that it should continue developing its nuclear-weapons without any fear of negative consequences.
Tehran evidently just uses these funds to expand its influence in various regions, including Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and South America.
Considering Iran's track record of failing to honor any commitments, efforts at diplomacy are destined to fail.
Should the Biden administration persist in pursuing a leadership approach perceived as lacking in strength, and should the Biden administration continue to pursue a strategy characterized by conciliation and concession towards the Iranian regime, 2024 will mark the year that the Islamic Republic of Iran acquires nuclear weapons, heralding a pivotal development in their military capabilities and devastating, far-reaching repercussions for regional and international security. If the US fails to remove Iran's nuclear capability -- and not just (literally) buy time to enable it -- the catastrophes that follow will surely go down as US President Joe Biden's legacy, as well as the legacy of those around him.
Iran has substantially increased its production rate of uranium, which, after tripling its output in the past few weeks, is now nearing weapons-grade levels, according to a recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In response to Iran's advancing nuclear capabilities, the US and Western powers' reaction has so far amounted to a "condemnation," indicating a lack of measures to impede Iran's progress, and suggesting a passive stance of acceptance rather than an active effort to counter Iran's actions.
The US and European powers did not allude to any consequences that Iran might encounter, in spite of acknowledging that the Iran's increased production of highly enriched uranium lacks credible civilian justification. In a statement, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States disapproved of this development, stating that they "condemn this measure that further aggravates the continued escalation of the Iranian nuclear program." As the saying goes, "Strong letter to follow."
From the Iranian regime's perspective, the failure of the Western powers to counter its nuclear program serves as the most explicit endorsement one can provide that it should continue developing its nuclear-weapons without any fear of negative consequences.
Even more bewildering is the Biden administration and EU3's persistent expression of commitment to a diplomatic resolution of the ongoing dispute over Iran's nuclear program. Although negotiating clearly has not been working, the US and its European allies have nevertheless stated that they remain "committed to a diplomatic solution".
Will the Biden administration ever realize that it is not possible to engage in diplomatic efforts with state sponsors of terrorism, particularly an emphatically Islamic one that already regards "infidel" laws as secular abominations that do not apply to Muslims, and, as well, a state that is doctrinally obligated to lie (taqiyya, "dissimulation") to protect Islam? As documented by the historian Raymond Ibrahim:
Regarding 3:28 ["Believers should not take disbelievers as guardians instead of the believers—and whoever does so will have nothing to hope for from Allah—unless it is a precaution against their tyranny."], the Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir (1301-1373) wrote: "Whoever at any time or place fears their [infidels'] evil, may protect himself through outward show."
"As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad's companions. Abu Darda said: "Let us smile to the face of some people while our hearts curse them." Al-Hassan said: "Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the day of judgment [in perpetuity]."
The outcomes of diplomatic engagement with the Iranian regime since the Biden administration assumed office include:
Iran is now engaged in attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
The country has enriched its uranium to 84%, nearing the nuclear-bomb threshold of 90%, with an estimated "few weeks... or less" from achieving nuclear capability.
Iran funded and helped plot Hamas's genocidal October 7 attack, as well as other attempts to destroy Israel. Estimated Iranian funding for Hamas is in the range of $70 million to $100 million annually.
Iran has delivered drones to Russia to aid in its attacks against Ukraine.
More than 101 attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq have been launched by Iranian proxies since October 17. More than 151 attacks on US forces have been carried out by Iranian proxies since the beginning of the Biden presidency, with the objective of ejecting the US from the Middle East. Many US service members have been wounded, at least 20 seriously with traumatic brain injuries.
There appears to be an escalated Iranian effort eventually to confront the US mainland from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
This dangerous path originated under the Obama administration, when, after forming the unauthorized Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) "nuclear agreement" with Iran in 2015, then President Barack Obama promised that "Iran will never get a nuclear weapon on my watch." Unfortunately, the operative part was the "on my watch": a sunset clause that lifted "restrictions on Iran's nuclear enrichment programme... after 2025," when Obama's "watch" would be well out of range. During Joe Biden's vice presidency, the Obama administration made unprecedented concessions to Iran's ruling mullahs, while consistently approaching Iranian leaders with generosity and flexibility. What resulted from these policies?
The outcome became evident as the Biden administration lifted sanctions against Iran on February 4, 2021, just a few weeks after President Joe Biden's inauguration, and providing global legitimacy to Iran's internal repression and external adventurism in the eyes of the international community. Iran's newfound respectability resulted in billions of dollars flowing into Iran and its military institutions, the coffers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as Iran's proxies and terror groups. Tehran evidently just uses these funds to expand its influence in various regions, including Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and South America. Considering Iran's track record of failing to honor any commitments (for instance here, here, here, here and here), efforts at diplomacy are destined to fail.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 2024 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.

How Islamic State bombings in Iran could escalate regional war
Harriet Marsden/The Week UK/ January 06/2024
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the worst terrorist attack in the history of Iran, which risks pushing the already unstable Middle East one step closer to regional conflict. At least 84 people were killed when two blasts "ripped through the crowds" in the city of Kerman in southern Iran, said The Guardian, near the tomb of Qasem Soleimani on the fourth anniversary of his assassination by the US. The senior Revolutionary Guards commander had been "a staunch enemy" of Islamic State (IS), which "resents the damage he did to its cause in Iraq and Syria". Iran initially blamed both the US and Israel, leading to fears of an all-out confrontation. The bombing came less than 24 hours after Israel assassinated the deputy head of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, in Lebanon, provoking an angry response from Iranian proxy Hezbollah. With the West already threatening military action against Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacking shipping in the Red Sea, both Tuesday's strike on Lebanese soil and Wednesday's bombings in Iran risk increasing tension between Iran, Israel and the US.
What happened?
The site of the attack was "highly symbolic", said the Financial Times (FT). Known as Iran's "shadow commander", Soleimani was the country's most powerful military figure and is "revered as a national hero by the Islamic regime and its supporters". He was killed in a US drone strike on Baghdad in 2020 ordered by the then president Donald Trump, who described him as "the number one terrorist anywhere in the world". Early confusion over the cause of Wednesday's bombing – after the mayor of Kerman said it was an accidental gas explosion – quickly gave way to speculation and blame. Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi flatly accused the "criminal America and Zionist regime", warning they would pay "a very high price", while Soleimani's successor, Ismail Qaani, also blamed both Israel and the US for the "terror attack".Iranian officials pointed out that the bombings took place the day after Iranian opposition figure Vahid Beheshti had appeared at Israel's parliament urging the direct targeting of Iran. As recently as last week, a senior Iranian commander was killed during Israeli air strikes in Syria.
Who was behind the attack?
Iran has "multiple foes", noted The Associated Press, "including exile groups, militant organisations and state actors". But based on the target and the methods used, Islamic State was assumed by many to have been the culprit. A senior Biden official said the explosions bore the hallmarks of IS, which is composed of loose affiliates around the Muslim world. On Thursday, the terrorist group posted a statement on its affiliate Telegram channels claiming that two of its members had detonated explosive belts. The statement, titled "And Kill Them Wherever You Find Them", named the two bombers (who were brothers) and said they targeted a gathering of "polytheists". But the group offered "no further proof", said CNN, and their account of the blasts "differs from that given by Iranian media". The death toll provided by IS was "significantly higher" than that reported by Iranian officials.
Is Islamic State back?
Put simply, it never went away.
For years, Sunni extremist groups including IS have conducted large-scale attacks against civilians in the Shiite-majority Iran. IS considers the Shia branch of Islam to be heretical, and has previously targeted shrines and religious sites in Iran, which is led by a theocratic government ruled by Shiite clerics.
The bombing in Iran was "the latest bloody episode" in IS’s targeting of Iran, which it considers "an irredeemable sectarian foe", said The New York Times. The Iranian authorities have claimed to have thwarted at least a dozen more IS attacks, said the paper. IS Khorasan Province, its much-feared branch in Afghanistan, has "repeatedly threatened Iran" over its polytheism, and has claimed responsibility for several attacks on the country, the most recent being in 2022 when a gunman killed 13 people at a shrine in Shiraz. Although there is "no love lost" between IS and Iran, a former Pentagon official in the Trump administration told the paper, "it does seem like an odd time to launch an attack with the current conflict in Gaza and the unified Muslim support for the Palestinians".
What happens next?
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has vowed a "harsh response" to the attacks. The president has cancelled a scheduled trip to Turkey, and the country will want to limit the amount of traffic crossing the border with Afghanistan, said Patrick Wintour in The Guardian.
There is "no sign" that Iran will take swift retribution for the attack, said Wintour. However, it will attempt to "harness a wave of sympathy in the Islamic world to press its call for an end to what it regards as the US's destabilising interventions in the Middle East".

Terrorism in Iran Exposes a Vulnerability It Doesn’t Want to Admit Having
Farnaz Fassihi/The New York Times/January 6, 2024
For years, Iran justified its military presence in Iraq and Syria, to its own people and the world, as a strategy for keeping terrorist groups at bay. Iranian officials frequently boasted that fighting terrorists directly or through proxy militias in the region meant they didn’t have to fight them at home.
That sense of security was shattered Wednesday, with the deadliest terrorist attack since the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic — two suicide explosions in the city of Kerman that killed 88 people, including 30 children, and injured more than 200. The Islamic State group, a mortal enemy of Iran, claimed responsibility.
Yet, even after the statement by the terrorist group, Iranian officials and pundits close to the government insisted — as they had in the immediate aftermath of the attack — that another enemy, Israel, was to blame. Tasnim News Agency, the media arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, went as far as claiming that “Israel ordered ISIS to take responsibility for the attack.” And Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, speaking at a ceremony in Kerman honoring the victims Friday, said Iran would retaliate and blamed both Israel and the United States.
Whatever the officials really think, blaming Israel and the United States is far more convenient, some analysts and opponents of the government say, than admitting that the state cannot protect its people from terrorism. The attack punctures the image of Iran as capable of flexing its might in wars around the region without suffering such large-scale retaliation at home.
The ministry of intelligence said Friday that 12 people in six provinces had been arrested in connection with the attack but did not elaborate on their identities or affiliations. It said one of the suicide bombers was from Tajikistan, but the identity of the second one was not yet confirmed. The statement also said security agents had discovered the place in Kerman where the attackers had stayed and arrested two of their accomplices. The statement said police discovered two suicide vests, remote control devices for detonating explosives, grenades, thousands of pieces of shrapnel to use in suicide bomb vests and wires and explosive devices that, officials said, suggest the attackers were planning other attacks. The Islamic State group issued a new statement Friday threatening more attacks and saying Kerman’s explosions marked “the beginning of our war,” with Iran.
It is not clear how widely Iranians accept allegations of Israeli responsibility. But if Iran’s leaders were hoping to unite the public against a common enemy, they did not appear to be succeeding. Many ordinary Iranians, both critics and supporters of the Islamic Republic, were instead venting their anger at the government. Conservatives loyal to the ideology of the clerics who rule the country said Iran’s timid response to Israel’s security breaches had emboldened it or other actors such as the Islamic State group to strike. Israel has carried out numerous strikes over the years against Iran’s military and nuclear facilities, and assassinations of its nuclear scientists and others, but those attacks have been narrowly targeted, not the indiscriminate mass killings claimed by the Islamic State group. “The opinion among the revolutionaries is overwhelmingly upset and not satisfied. Right now, we are getting hit over and over and we are doing nothing,” Aboozar Nasr, a 44-year-old business owner in the religious city of Qom, said in a telephone interview. He called himself a conservative follower of the hard-line government.
“If the policy is restraint, then officials should stop the threatening rhetoric,” he said. “It sounds empty and fake.”
Iran backs and helps arm Hamas, the Palestinian group that led the Oct. 7 assault on Israel, which has retaliated with a devastating bombing campaign and invasion of the Gaza Strip. It also arms Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, which have stepped up attacks on Israel during its war with Hamas.
The Houthis have also attacked vessels in the Red Sea and barred ships heading to Israel from the waterway, disrupting international shipping, while Iranian proxies have launched nearly daily attacks on U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq.
During multiple town hall-style discussions on social media platforms, speakers from different cities and different political factions inside Iran have questioned why and how — given the surge of tensions in the region — security forces had not foreseen the threat of an attack and taken more precautions to prevent it.
“The Islamic Republic always bluffs. All it knows well is to bully its own people. They are not able to guarantee the security of this country,” Mohsen, a 39-year-old engineer, said in a telephone interview from Tehran. He asked that his last name not be used for fear of retribution.
Wednesday’s suicide bombings struck a memorial for Gen. Qassem Soleimani, on the anniversary of his killing in 2020 by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq. Soleimani had directed the crucial role played by Iran and its allies in the military defeat in Syria and Iraq of the Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim extremist group that sees Iran’s Shiite Muslim majority as heretics. But the U.S. accused him of orchestrating attacks on U.S. military in the region, enabling Iran to gain dominance in postwar Iraq and arming militant groups fighting Israel.
The Islamic State group also took responsibility for a 2018 attack at an Iranian military parade that killed 25 people — and the government vowed revenge against the United States, Gulf Arab nations and Israel. The Islamic State group also claimed two separate attacks by gunmen raiding a Shia shrine in Shiraz in 2022 and 2023 that killed about a dozen people.
Several women interviewed in Tehran said this week’s terrorist attack reinforced their underlying feelings that they are not entirely safe in public spaces in Iran. They said women defying the hijab rule and not covering their hair already risked violent confrontation with security agents and monetary fines.
“After the recent attacks, I have decided to not go to any crowded places. The fear of insecurity is always there,” Arezou, a stay-at-home mother in Tehran, said in an interview. For Iran’s leadership, the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks adds to their growing list of challenges, domestically and internationally. The economy remains in shambles because of U.S. sanctions, mismanagement and corruption. Prospects for a return to a deal with the West to limit Iran’s nuclear program, which would bring sanctions relief, appear dim. Facing months of mass demonstrations in 2022 demanding the end of clerical rule, the government responded with brutal violence, killing hundreds of protesters — just as it did to quell protests in 2019. The war between Israel and Hamas poses new challenges for Iran’s leadership, with its allied militias actively engaged in the fight. Iran has avoided direct involvement or consequences on its own soil. But in the past two weeks, a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was killed in Syria and the deputy political leader of Hamas, one of the group’s liaisons to Hezbollah and Iran, was killed in Beirut, both in strikes widely attributed to Israel, and the United States killed a senior commander of an Iraqi militant group close to Iran, in a drone strike in Baghdad.
“The Islamic Republic is extremely conscious that these attacks taken together could be a trap to spread the war to Iran,” said Sasan Karimi, a Tehran-based political analyst. “Everyone is furious. They want to react with restraint and calculation to avoid a strategic mistake that could jeopardize their grip on power domestically and regionally.” Even as the rhetoric of war was escalating, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei instructed military commanders to pursue “strategic restraint” and avoid a direct military confrontation with the U.S. at all costs, according to two Iranians familiar with the internal debates.
Still, some hard-liners are calling for Iran to make a strong show of force. “The new campaign of assassinations before they reach a tragic pivotal point must result in a joint attack otherwise our hands will remain on the trigger. Every day, we have to cry for more martyrs. This is not entering war, this is deterrence,” Mahdi Mohammadi, the adviser to Iran’s speaker of parliament and a former commander in the Revolutionary Guard, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
On Thursday, Gen. Ismail Ghani, Soleimani’s successor as head of the Revolutionary Guard’s powerful Quds Force, visited the cemetery in Kerman that was the scene of the suicide attack. Dressed in black rather than a military uniform, he knelt at Soleimani’s grave, placed his hands on the tombstone and prayed. A large crowd around him chanted: “Revenge, Revenge.”
c.2024 The New York Times Company

Netanyahu’s judicial coup is over … for now
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/January 06, 2024
Inevitably, there is a sense among most Israelis that life and politics could be, and probably should be, divided between before and after Oct. 7, and what preceded this fateful day is diminished by the war and sheer trauma that ensued.
However, the ruling by the High Court of Justice last week to nullify a law passed by the Knesset in July of eliminating the reasonableness clause to a Basic Law, followed by another ruling that postpones a further amendment that seeks to remove the power of the attorney general to declare a prime minister unfit for office — two major components in the government’s so-called judicial overhaul — were a stark reminder that Israel is not only deeply engaged in a war with Hamas in Gaza, and increasingly with Hezbollah in Lebanon, but for well over a year has been in a battle to save its democratic system.
Due to the importance of the reasonableness clause, a full 15-justice panel heard this case, and it passed its ruling with the slimmest of majorities, with eight justices ruling to strike down the law and seven to uphold it. But this tells only half the story, as 13 of them also wrote in their opinions that the court did have the authority to review Basic Laws and amendments made to them by the Knesset. Both decisions have demarcated the specific and more general fault lines between the executive branch, supported by the legislative branch, and the judiciary. In the first place, the court struck down an amendment that would have limited its ability to review the “reasonableness” of government decisions, or in other words, to judge whether actions of the executive branch meet the standard of reasonability.
Without this power, the government would have been granted by law a free hand when it comes to appointments to public positions, including of those who have been charged or even convicted of corruption, leaving the judiciary powerless to overturn such decisions or nullify any other policies that serve those in power and not the country.
If any government in Israeli history has made the case for the importance of the reasonableness standard to be overseen by the judiciary, it is this sixth government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
From its very early days, it has been trying to allow a Knesset member already convicted of corruption while serving as a Cabinet member, and later of tax fraud, to be reappointed as a minister in charge of two major government departments, an appointment that the High Court of Justice ruled, justifiably, to be “unreasonable in the extreme.” Israel has an unusual system of governance, much of it due to the lack of a written constitution, which can leave a government tempted to take advantage and act in self-interest instead of the interests of the people.
At the same time, it strengthens the perception of the judiciary as the gatekeepers on behalf of the nation, especially in a parliamentary system whereby the majority among the legislature is the one that forms the government, and hence can be reluctant to provide the necessary oversight of the executive’s (mis)behavior, of fulfilling the missing piece in the democratic checks-and-balances system, and preventing the executive from handing itself limitless power with impunity.
Without its independent judiciary, Israel’s democracy is in existential danger.
The argument usually heard from members of the current coalition is that judges are appointed, unlike politicians who are elected, hence the courts should have no legal or moral right to change legislative and other decisions taken by elected officials.
Needless to say, this is sheer populist demagoguery in an attempt to silence the judiciary with its assigned task of making a learned, legal decision on whether the legislature and executive are operating within the boundaries set by the law and democratic principles.
Despite its lack of a written constitution, Israel has enacted Basic Laws, which have some constitutional standing and qualities, with the intention that should all of them be fulfilled they would become the country’s constitution.
However, due to political complications as a result of fragmentation within the political system — much of it a reflection of that within Israeli society — the work on a constitution has never been completed, so it has been left to the High Court of Justice to provide the legal interpretations that all citizens, including and especially government officials, should abide by.
Of equal if not more importance is the overwhelming support for the judges’ decision by an overwhelming majority that it is in the court’s authority to exercise a judicial review of Israel’s Basic Laws due to their constitutional status in Israeli jurisprudence, and if necessary intervene in exceptional cases and prevent the abuse of power by either the Knesset or the government.
The reaction from the political system, civil society and the media to the court’s decision was almost predictable, although those who led the protests and the campaign against the unscrupulous and aggressive judicial coup by the Netanyahu government were distinctively more explicit in expressing their satisfaction at having forestalled, at least for now, the country’s march toward a Netanyahu dictatorship; while those who promoted it were less vociferous in their protest against it, especially the main protagonists among them.
Much of the more subdued reaction of the chief culprits of the assault on the democratic system can be attributed to the fact that they are the very same people who are deeply implicated in the failure to prevent the disastrous attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 through their polarizing of the nation, not to mention being behind the failed strategy toward the Palestinian faction that left Israel exposed to external threats. That has not stopped some of the more extreme elements within the coalition from threatening that when the war is won (whatever that means), they will then return with vigor and continue to undermine the judiciary.
The battle to save Israeli democracy is not over, and preserving the separation of powers and the checks-and-balances mechanisms is an essential and necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.
Israel needs to rid itself, through a general election, of the current anti-democratic government, and then produce a written, liberal-democratic constitution. Moreover, its people and leaders should internalize that there can be no liberal democracy as long as there is an occupation and violation of the rights of an entire nation, which means that not all its citizens are equal in the eyes of the law.
For too long, anti-democratic elements in Israel have been allowed to dominate the political and social discourse. Without its independent judiciary, Israel’s democracy is in existential danger, and it should be praised for reasserting itself in the face of the vicious attacks by democratically elected anti-democrats.
*Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at international affairs think thank Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg

A major election year that will shape the world for the next decade
Andrew Hammond/Arab News/January 06, 2024
The year 2023 proved to be an important 12 months in terms of global politics and the economy. Yet 2024 could prove to be an even more pivotal year, especially given the important elections in which an estimated 2 billion people in dozens of nations will head to the polls — more, perhaps, than in any other year in modern history. Little wonder, then, that the markets are already looking ahead to these eye-catching and potentially game-changing ballots around the world. They begin on Jan. 7 in Bangladesh and include elections in established and emerging great powers, such as the US and India, as well as pivotal middle powers such as Indonesia, Mexico and Russia.
The most-watched ballot, of course, will be the presidential election on Nov. 5 in the US (population 340 million). It seems likely that the incumbent, President Joe Biden, will stand for a second term, despite the 81-year-old’s uneven poll numbers.
All eyes are on whether Donald Trump, 77, will be the Republican challenger, which would raise the significant possibility that the political maverick could become only the second person in history elected to the White House for non-consecutive terms. The first was Grover Cleveland, in 1884 and 1892.
While the outcome of the US presidential race is genuinely uncertain, the same cannot be said of the counterpart contest in Russia, on March 15-17. President Vladimir Putin, 71, is seeking a fifth term and widely expected to emerge triumphant in a nation with a population of more than 140 million.
Indeed, such is Putin’s political longevity, a new term will mean he will celebrate a combined 25 years of prime ministership and presidency this year. He is also on track to possibly even surpass Joseph Stalin’s near 30-year reign as Russian leader.
Yet while Putin appears to be firmly entrenched in power, he is not politically invulnerable right now, as illustrated by the Wagner mutiny in June last year. While he might well remain in power for several years, his authority might decay significantly if he fails to deliver the “victory” in the war in Ukraine he promised in February 2022. From a regional standpoint, it is the Asia Pacific that will perhaps host the greatest number of pivotal elections. In India, polls suggest Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 73, is likely to rule the roost once again when the largest democracy in the world, with a population of more than 1.4 billion, goes to the ballot box between April and May.
These elections will not only shape domestic politics and international relations, but also the global economic and financial landscape.  Another leader looking for a renewed mandate is Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, as she seeks further ballot success for the Awami League in a country with a population of about 165 million. While she has earned plaudits internationally for resettling hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, her government has been criticized for what is perceived as its increasingly authoritarian rule.
In Taiwan, population 24 million, the Jan. 13 presidential contest is being framed by China, which claims the island nation as its territory, as a choice between war and peace. Beijing has focused its criticism on Lai Ching-te, 64, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate, warning that any attempted push for formal independence for Taiwan will mean conflict.
The race to lead Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation, with about 280 million people, is also being widely watched internationally, not least because popular incumbent President Joko Widodo, 62, known as Jokowi, cannot run for a third term because of term limits.
Though he is not on the Feb. 14 ballot himself, his political and economic legacy nevertheless looms large, including the so-called “Jokowinomics” (state-led developmentalism) that have helped bring a new wave of growth to the nation.
Moreover, his son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 36, is standing as the vice-presidential running mate of Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, 72, which has sparked criticism that Widodo is trying to establish a political dynasty.
But the Asia Pacific is not the only place where political action is ramping up in 2024. Other notable elections, outside of those in Russia and the US, will take place in Africa, where about a third of the continent’s population will head to the polls, including in coup-hit Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso.
The election in South Africa, which has a population of 60 million and is a member of the expanding BRICS group of nations, might prove to be the most competitive in the post-apartheid era.
Certainly, the long-ruling African National Congress, currently led by Prime Minister Cyril Ramaphosa, 71, which first came to power three decades ago under Nelson Mandela, is likely to win the most votes. But polls indicate that its share of the vote could fall below 50 percent for the first time since it gained power in 1994, raising the prospect of a coalition government.
In the Americas, meanwhile, the 130 million population of Mexico will likely face a choice between Claudia Sheinbaum, 61, who was formerly in charge of Mexico City and is a member of the ruling Morena party, and Xochitl Galvez, 60, a former senator from the main opposition coalition Frente por Mexico, as their next president. This choice between two women is a welcome first in the country’s history and means that come December, Mexico, a nation sometimes known for its machismo, will be run by a female. The outcomes of few of these high-profile ballots, which feature a large number of candidates in their 70s or older, are clear cut. What is certain, however, is that they will not only shape domestic politics and international relations, but also the global economic and financial landscape in the key decade that lies ahead.
*Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.

Israel has woken up to Islamist terror, while the West remains asleep
Zoe Strimpel/The Telegraph/January 06, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125877/125877/
A month or so ago I visited Tel Aviv to show solidarity as the most dreadful moment in modern Jewish history surged on, and to demonstrate to my friends in Israel that I, at least, had not forsaken them. They were still traumatised, but had begun to think clearly, and their words cut right through meaningless noise of Western politicians and dignitaries I’d been suffocating on. Sitting with chocolate milks and halva-stuffed buns in Dizengoff Circle, my old friend Daniela – with whom, over the years, I have eaten my way round Tel Aviv – put it clearly. “Once they’re finished with us, what then? They’ll come for you.”
Although this idea has been shouted from the rooftops by Israelis, it has largely been ignored in Britain and the US. From the Israeli perspective, our continued arrogant and immoral torpor has become excruciating to watch. And, having spent the past week back in Israel, it is easy to see why.
We visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a few miles from Gaza, and one of the dozens of locations where Hamas went door to door executing families and young people. It is an eerie scene, frozen at 6.40AM on Saturday 7 October.
There are bikes unlocked on terraces; wind chimes, barbecues, sun loungers, flowers – gathering a skein of dust and dirt as time passes and the residents don’t return, in many cases because they’re dead. Those dwellings that aren’t just scorched remains have spray painted markings on them, denoting Israeli bodies found inside; that they have been swept of explosives and so on.
In some houses, mounds of washing of the dead – from g-strings to swimsuits – lie on the floor of rooms whose walls and ceilings were frenziedly sprayed by thousands of bullets, the holes still fresh. We saw a “car cemetery” – a vast dump of cars that Hamas’s ghouls blew up as those inside tried to escape from the Nova music festival and the kibbutzim. The Israeli rabbinate has had to give permission, for the first time, for burials of parts of cars because in some cases the remains could not be extricated.
We trod in the footsteps of pure evil and saw the trauma of those who had been directly attacked by it. But even those who have suffered the most perceive the bigger picture and are begging for us in the West to heed it. “We are just the centre of the bang but it’s World War Three,” said the soft-spoken husband of a woman whose two younger brothers are still held hostage, dead or alive, in Gaza. “We are dealing with the sons of the devil himself. We were asleep. Now we are awake. We see the Iron Dome [Israel’s missile defence system] as a toy. We have all kinds of technology and missiles and the fact is that we were blind.
“But you in the West,” he added. “You are still blind, still asleep. When will you wake up? Your October 7 could be any day – it will be any day. You need to act now.”
Indeed. From our protests celebrating the grotesquely false charge of Israeli “genocide” in Gaza to our absurd indulgence of hate speech and incitement in mosques, to the apparent capture of the Met by the pro-Palestine cause, we are not only asleep but appear insistent on strengthening the lethal la-la land we’re living in.
Instead of protecting Londoners from theft and violence – including the Jews who have been harassed and subjected to unspeakable intimidation with each pro-Palestine rally – it was revealed last week that the Met was looking for accounts of war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza.
Meanwhile, the House of Commons sent an email which suggested it would be flying the Palestinian flag “in honour of the Palestine ambassador” – although Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has since denied this would happen.
Such a move, had it gone ahead, would have been astonishing to those in Israel staring out from grief-soaked eyes, condemned forever to replay in their minds the images of their loved ones caught up in the butchery of October 7.
We must get real, and fast – and Israelis are clear about how. We must stop indulging Iran and begin frightening it. We must cut all aid money to Gaza. We need to get real about aid organisations which seem to have been too soft on Hamas.
And above all; we must allow Israel to continue its military operations. The vast majority of Israelis regret all harm to civilians. They also see that to get their loved ones back and, after that, to remake an Israel that its citizens feel safe in, there is only one proper outcome.
“Hamas must be on its knees and beg us to stop. I don’t see any other way to get them back,” said the red-eyed cousin of Shiri Bibas, who Hamas claims is dead, and whose two red-headed sons, including her baby who should turn one this month, are still somewhere in Gaza.
Israelis do not like or want war; thousands of their children and siblings and parents have to put their lives on the line every time Israel goes into combat. But having finally grasped the enemy in its true form, after an unforgivable lapse, they know there is a large amount of dangerous, courageous and uncompromising work to be done before platitudes about living in peace can mean anything ever again.
To us, the lesson of Israel should be clear. If we in the West want to continue to live in a world that lets us forget evil, violence and death, we need to acknowledge those forces evil and fight hard against them. Now.
https://ca.yahoo.com/news/israel-woken-islamist-terror-while-172655635.html