Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 08-09/2024
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
Video/Remembering Mohamad Chatah with MP, Samy Gemayel
Pope calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon
Israel Kills Top Hezbollah Commander in Lebanon, AFP Says
Israeli strike kills top Hezbollah commander in south
Slain Hezbollah commander fought in some of the group's biggest battles, had close ties to leaders
Netanyahu tells Hezbollah to 'look at what happened' to Hamas
Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes: Latest developments
Report: Israel suggests German forces on Lebanon border
Mikati: We're working on a diplomatic solution for situation in south
Airport update: Screens back to normal operations, BHS underway for restoration
Hochstein's 'blueprint': The geopolitical chess game on the Lebanese-Israeli front
Israel, US and Iran's allies including Hezbollah inch closer to all-out war
From Houthis to Hezbollah, a look at Iran-allied groups around Middle East
Israel warns of 'another war' after Hezbollah strike on sensitive air traffic base
A Message From Gazelle Sharmahd

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 08-09/2024
Hochstein's 'blueprint': The geopolitical chess game on the Lebanese-Israeli front
Israel focuses on central and south Gaza as top US diplomat seeks de-escalation
One in 100 people in Gaza has been killed since October 7
Israeli man pleads for his release in latest Gaza hostage video
Pro-Palestinian protesters block New York City bridges, tunnel
Israel hits south Gaza as top US diplomat Blinken seeks de-escalation
Israel focuses on central and south Gaza as top US diplomat seeks de-escalation
‘Freedom is paid for in blood’: In the occupied West Bank, families long to bury their dead
Jordan’s King Abdullah: Israel’s ‘brutal’ war creates generation of Gaza orphans
Israel picks former Supreme Court President Aharon Barack to serve on ICJ genocide panel
Israeli forces say they locate large underground weapons factory in Gaza
Iran backs Iraqi call to end presence of US-led force
Crown prince meets US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in AlUla
The West must shoot down Putin's spy drones
Ukraine special forces say they helped destroy a Russian weapons system that was blocking satellite comms
Russia struggled to push the Ukrainians into the river after its planes were shot down, intel says, showing how a surprising failure at the war's start is still a problem

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on January 08-09/2024
How Biden Can Immediately End Iranian-backed Attacks in the Red Sea/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute./January 8, 2024
Israel in the dock as Gaza genocide case begins/Chris Doyle/Arab News/January 08/2024
Economic, political factors driving increase in migration from Iran/Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/January 08/2024
International solidarity key to addressing Sudan refugee crisis/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/January 08/2024
Everybody loses in an impending regional conflagration/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/January 08, 2024
A Gory Christmas’: Christians Slaughtered in the Nigerian Genocide/Raymond Ibrahim/January 08, 2024
 

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 08-09/2024
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.

Video/Remembering Mohamad Chatah with MP, Samy Gemayel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQR3ztySQhY
Reflections on Mohamad Chatah with Kataeb Party leader Samy Gemayel.
Make sure to watch 'TEN YEARS' that includes conversations with family, friends and colleagues that reflect on Mohamad Chatah's life and career, a decade after his assassination:
• TEN YEARS - A tribute to Mohamad Chatah

Pope calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon
Associated Press/January 8, 2024
Pope Francis on Monday called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and south Lebanon, in an annual speech listing threats to global peace and human dignity. The pope also called for the liberation of hostages held in Gaza and reiterated the Holy See’s position seeking a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians and an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem. He also condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel “and every instance of terrorism and extremism.” At the same time, he said the attack provoked a “strong Israeli military response” that had left thousands dead and created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Israel Kills Top Hezbollah Commander in Lebanon, AFP Says
John Bowker/Bloomberg/January 8, 2024
(Bloomberg) -- Israel killed a Hezbollah commander in south Lebanon, AFP reported, amid rising concerns the war with Hamas will escalate into a wider Middle Eastern conflict. The senior member of the Iran-backed group was killed by a strike on his car, the news agency said Monday, citing a security official who asked not to be identified. AFP did not name the commander. In a statement, Hezbollah said its commander Wissam Taweel from the southern village of Kherbet Slim was killed in the fight against Israel, without giving further information. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli drone strike targeted a vehicle in Kherbet Slim. Photos on the news agency showed the charred vehicle on the side of the road. If true, this would be the second Hezbollah commander Israel had targeted in less than week in Lebanon. Hamas also blames Israel for the killing of a top leader in Beirut last week, which Hezbollah responded to by firing missiles into Israel. On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that “a moment of profound tension” in the Middle East could “easily” turn into a wider war. The Israeli shekel, after rallying in November and December on signals the war would largely be contained to Gaza, has started weakening again. It fell 0.9% to 3.71 per dollar as of 2:25 p.m. in Tel Aviv, extending its loss this year to 2.5%, the worst performance among around 150 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Some of that reverse came after an interest-rate cut on Jan. 1.
Regional tensions have also been roiled by Red Sea shipping attacks carried out by the Houthis. Those have led the US and its allies to contemplate striking targets in Yemen, where the Iran-backed rebels are based. Hamas, a militant group also backed by Iran, is considered a terrorist organization by the US, as is Hezbollah. The Gaza-based group killed around 1,200 people when it attacked Israel on Oct. 7. More than 22,000 have been killed in the Palestinian enclave since Israel responded with a bombardment and ground invasion, according to its Hamas-run health ministry.
(Updates with Hezbollah statement in third paragraph. An earlier version was corrected to show the strike was in south Lebanon, not Beirut.)

Israeli strike kills top Hezbollah commander in south
Agence France Presse/January 8, 2024
Israel killed Monday a top commander from Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in a strike in south Lebanon, adding to fears the conflict in Gaza could spill over. The commander, Wissam Tawil, was killed in an Israeli raid targeting his Honda SUV in the southern village of Khirbet Selm, which lies around 15 kilometers away from the border. Al-Tawil "had a leading role in managing Hezbollah's operations in the south," a security official said requesting anonymity for security concerns. The commander held several other top positions in the Shiite movement, the official said. Hezbollah later announced the killing of a "commander" for the first time, naming him as Wissam Hassan Tawil. It said he died "on the road to Jerusalem" -- the phrase used for fighters killed by Israel. Tawil was the highest-ranking Hezbollah member to be killed since the group and Israel began exchanging near-daily cross-border fire after the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7. The killing of Hamas's deputy leader in Beirut last week has raised fears of a wider conflagration. Saleh al-Arouri, killed in a missile strike widely attributed to Israel, was the most high-profile Hamas figure to die during the war, in the first attack on Beirut since the fighting began.On Friday, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel his fighters would respond swiftly to Arouri's killing. The group claimed an attack on an Israeli air control base the next day. On Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell met Mohammed Raad, head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, in Beirut as part of a push to avoid Lebanon being dragged into the Israel-Hamas conflict. In November, Raad's son was killed in an Israeli strike in south Lebanon along with five other fighters, the group had said. Nearly three months of cross-border fire have killed more than 180 people in Lebanon, including over 135 Hezbollah fighters, but also more than 20 civilians including three journalists, according to an AFP tally. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

Slain Hezbollah commander fought in some of the group's biggest battles, had close ties to leaders
BEIRUT (AP)/January 8, 2024
The elite Hezbollah commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike Monday in southern Lebanon fought for the group for decades and took part in some of its biggest battles. Wissam al-Tawil, a commander in Hezbollah’s secretive Radwan Force deployed along the border with Israel, was killed when the strike hit his SUV in his hometown of Khirbet Silem. The strike was about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border, beyond the villages and towns that have witnessed the two sides exchange fire over the past three months. Israeli officials have been demanding for weeks that the Radwan Force withdraw from the border area to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by the fighting to return to their homes. During a visit to Israel last month, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said a “negotiated outcome” would be the best way to reassure residents of northern Israel. Al-Tawil was the highest-ranking Hezbollah official to be killed since the exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel border began following the deadly Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel by Hamas, a Hezbollah ally. A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press that al-Tawil had a role in sparking the summer 2006 war with Israel and fought in Syria’s civil war, where he was in charge of coordinating between the Lebanese group and the Syrian army in the battles against the Islamic State group. On July 12, 2006, al-Tawil was a member of a special Hezbollah unit that crossed into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed others, triggering a monthlong fight with Israel that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon and 160 in Israel, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Years later, when Hezbollah joined the war in Syria in 2013, fighting alongside Syrian government forces, al-Tawil was a close aide to Hezbollah's chief commander there, Mustafa Badreddine, who was killed in 2016, the official said. Al-Tawil, whose two brothers were killed fighting with Hezbollah, participated in dozens of attacks against Israeli forces and their Lebanese allies during Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon until it withdrew in 2000. During his long years with the group, al-Tawil was close to Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military chief from the group's founding in 1982 until he was killed in a bombing in the Syrian capital in 2008. Al-Tawil also had close links with Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Quds Force, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.

Netanyahu tells Hezbollah to 'look at what happened' to Hamas
Naharnet/Mon, January 8, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday warned Hezbollah to look at "what happened to their friends (Hamas)" in Gaza, assuring Israeli troops on Lebanon’s border that "this is what will happen here in the north" should a bigger war erupt. Netanyahu visited an Israeli army base on the northern border with Lebanon during attacks by Hezbollah. "I chose to come to Kiryat Shmona on the day of shelling on us, of anti-tank fire. I very much appreciate the service you and your friends are doing here, to protect our northern borders and also to send a message to Hezbollah," Netanyahu declared. "Hezbollah got us massively wrong in 2006, and is getting us massively wrong now. It thought we were ‘spider webs’, suddenly to see what a "spider" we are. It sees here tremendous power, the unification of a people, a determination to do whatever is necessary to restore security to the north, and I tell you -- this is my policy," the Israeli PM added. "We will do everything to restore security to the north and allow your families, because many of you are local, to return home safely and know that we cannot be messed with. We will do whatever it takes. Of course, we prefer that this be done without a wide campaign, but that will not stop us," Netanyahu added, referring to a possible military intervention if diplomatic efforts fail, a key point reiterated by several of Israel's leaders. Israel killed a top Hezbollah military commander in a strike on south Lebanon on Monday, adding to fears the conflict in Gaza could spread. The killing of Hamas' deputy leader in Beirut’s southern suburbs last week has also raised fears of a wider conflagration. Nearly three months of cross-border fire have killed more than 180 people in Lebanon, including over 135 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. The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese residents on both sides of the border.

Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes: Latest developments
Agence France Presse/Mon, January 8, 2024
A top commander from Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces was killed Monday in a strike on the southern village of Khirbet Selm, adding to fears the conflict in Gaza could spill over. Also on Monday, Israeli warplanes struck the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab, while Israeli tanks shelled a mosque in the border town of al-Abbasiyya. Shells also hit al-Wazzani, al-Hebbariye, and al-Taybeh. Earlier on Monday, Israeli media said a missile had hit Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel. Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli posts of Rwaisat el-Alam and Hadb al-Bustan. Israel said Monday it had hit overnight "numerous Hezbollah targets" across its border with Lebanon. In the last week, Israel has killed a senior Hamas militant in an airstrike in Beirut and Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets into Israel on an air traffic control base. The increase in fighting across the border gave new urgency to U.S. diplomatic efforts as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Israel on Monday as part of his latest Mideast tour aiming at avoiding a regional conflagration. Hezbollah said the rocket barrage was an "initial response" to the targeted killing of top Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut last week. Hezbollah's military capabilities are far superior to those of Hamas and Israeli leaders have said their patience is wearing thin, and that if the tensions cannot be resolved through diplomacy, they are prepared to use force.

Report: Israel suggests German forces on Lebanon border
Naharnet/Mon, January 8, 2024 
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will carry to Lebanon an Israeli proposal calling for the deployment of German forces on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel, Lebanese sources said. “Israel is demanding the deployment of German forces with military powers on the border with Lebanon,” the sources told Sky News Arabia. The Lebanese side, however, has rejected the Israeli proposal, the sources added.

Mikati: We're working on a diplomatic solution for situation in south
Naharnet/Mon, January 8, 2024
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said that Lebanon is “working in a diplomatic solution for the situation in the south.”“Its implementation will perhaps be linked to halting the aggression against Gaza,” Mikati added, in an interview with al-Hurra television. “What’s needed is reviving the (1949) Armistice Agreement and implementing it; restoring the situation in the south to how it was before the year 1967; returning the Shebaa Farms that were under Lebanese sovereignty before they started to be gradually occupied; and retreating to the previous Line of Withdrawal as per the Armistice Agreement,” Mikati said. He added that U.S. presidential envoy Amos Hochstein will visit Beirut this week and that “we will discuss with him all these issues.”“We have received a proposal calling for (Hezbollah’s) withdrawal to the area north of Litani, but we insist on a comprehensive solution,” Mikati went on to say. “We have emphasized that we are extending our hands to the international community to establish stability in the region, and if we manage to restore Lebanon’s rights, Hezbollah will have no objective but the Lebanese interest,” the premier added.

Airport update: Screens back to normal operations, BHS underway for restoration
LBCI/January 8, 2024
Fadi El Hassan, Director-General of Civil Aviation, announced on Monday that the screens in the arrival and departure halls at the airport are now functioning normally. He pointed out that the baggage handling system (BHS) is gradually being restored to its normal state, and manual inspection is currently being conducted while the scanners remain unaffected. El Hassan emphasized in his statement that what happened was very significant and unprecedented. He stated, "We are dealing with the situation seriously to prevent it from happening again."

Hochstein's 'blueprint': The geopolitical chess game on the Lebanese-Israeli front
LBCI/January 8, 2024
First and foremost, Amos Hochstein's request from Israeli officials is the neutralization of the Lebanese army from any military operations at the present stage or in any upcoming developments, particularly if the war with Hezbollah expands, considering the Lebanese army as the primary tool in implementing UN Resolution 1701 and any other security arrangements in southern Lebanon upon reaching a political solution. At this time, information has converged that Hochstein is formulating a plan to address the border situation between Lebanon and Israel. The formulation of this plan is ongoing despite Israel's insistence that Hezbollah cease fire first. This is despite Hezbollah's insistence on not discussing any plan before a ceasefire in Gaza. The sources suggest that the Americans want the plan to be ready the moment military operations cease and actual implementation begins, addressing "reservations" along the Blue Line, addressing breaches in the vicinity of Mari and northern Ghajar, and dealing with the situation of the Shebaa Farms and Kfarchouba. Notably, this point is the most contentious due to its connection to a Syrian position. Lebanon has informed the Americans and Europeans that if the Israelis agree to resolve this issue, it would imply resolving it with Syria. Sources also mention American-European coordination regarding the implementation of Resolution 1701 and addressing border issues, working to alleviate tension, at least in the current stage. The Americans intend to brief members of the Quintet Committee on their actions, and movement by this committee towards Lebanon is expected by the end of this month, led by French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian, with meetings and activities anticipated in Riyadh and Doha preceding that.

Israel, US and Iran's allies including Hezbollah inch closer to all-out war
Associated Press/Mon, January 8, 2024
In the last week alone, Israel has killed a senior Hamas militant in an airstrike in Beirut, Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets into Israel, the U.S. has killed a militia commander in Baghdad and Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have traded fire with the American Navy. Each strike and counterstrike increases the risk of the already catastrophic war in Gaza spilling across the region. And in the decades-old standoff pitting the U.S. and Israel against Iran and allied militant groups, any one party could choose all-out war over a loss of face. The divisions within each camp add another layer of volatility: Hamas might have hoped its Oct. 7 attack would drag its allies into a wider war with Israel. Israelis increasingly talk about the need to change the equation in Lebanon, even as the U.S. aims to contain the conflict. As the intertwined chess games grow ever more complicated, the potential for miscalculation rises.
GAZA IS GROUND ZERO
Hamas says the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war in Gaza was an act of purely Palestinian resistance to Israel's decades-long domination of the Palestinians. There is no evidence that Iran, Hezbollah or other allied groups played a direct role or even knew about it beforehand. But when Israel responded by launching one of the 21st century's most devastating military campaigns in Gaza, a besieged enclave home to 2.3 million Palestinians, the so-called Axis of Resistance — Iran and the militant groups it supports across the region — could hardly stay on the sidelines. The Palestinian cause has deep resonance across the region, and leaving Hamas alone to face Israel's fury would have risked unraveling a military alliance that Iran has been building up since the 1979 Islamic Revolution put it on a collision course with the West. "They don't want war, but at the same they don't want to let the Israelis keep striking without retaliation," said Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese expert on Hezbollah. "Something big has to happen, without going to war, so that the Israelis and Americans are convinced that there is no way forward," he said.
HEZBOLLAH THREADS THE NEEDLE
Of all Iran's regional proxies, Hezbollah faces the biggest dilemma.
If it tolerates Israeli attacks, like the strike in Beirut that killed Hamas' deputy political leader, it risks appearing to be a weak or unreliable ally. But if it triggers an all-out war, Israel has threatened to wreak massive destruction on Lebanon, which is already mired in a severe economic crisis. Even Hezbollah's supporters may see that as too heavy a price to pay for a Palestinian ally. Hezbollah has carried out strikes along the border nearly every day since the war in Gaza broke out, with the apparent aim of tying down some Israeli troops. Israel has returned fire, but each side appears to be carefully calibrating its actions to limit the intensity. A Hezbollah barrage of at least 40 rockets fired at an Israeli military base on Saturday sent a message without starting a war. Would 80 have been a step too far? What if someone had been killed? How many casualties would warrant a full-blown offensive? The grim math provides no clear answers.
And in the end, it might not be a single strike that does it. Israel is determined to see tens of thousands of its citizens return to communities near the border with Lebanon that were evacuated under Hezbollah fire nearly three months ago, and after Oct. 7 it may no longer be able to tolerate an armed Hezbollah presence just on the other side of the frontier. Israeli leaders have repeatedly threatened to use military force if Hezbollah does not respect a 2006 U.N. cease-fire that ordered the militant group to withdraw from the border. "Neither side wants a war, but the two sides believe it is inevitable," said Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. "Everybody in Israel thinks it's just a matter of time until we need to change the reality" so that people can return to their homes, he said.
ANOTHER AMERICAN WAR IN THE MIDEAST?
The U.S. positioned two aircraft carrier strike groups in the region in October. One is returning home but being replaced by other warships. The deployments sent an unmistakable warning to Iran and its allies against widening the conflict, but not all of them seem to have gotten the message. Iran-backed militant groups in Syria and Iraq have launched dozens of rocket attacks on U.S. bases. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea, with potential consequences for the world economy. Iran says its allies act on their own and not on orders from Tehran. The last thing most Americans want after two decades of costly campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan is another war in the Middle East. But in recent weeks, U.S. forces have killed a senior Iran-backed militia commander in Iraq and 10 Houthi rebels who were trying to board a container ship, spilling blood that could call out for a response.
Washington has struggled to cobble together a multi-national security force to protect Red Sea shipping. But it appears hesitant to attack the Houthis on land when they appear close to reaching a peace deal with Saudi Arabia after years of war. Israeli officials have meanwhile said the window for its allies to get both Hezbollah and the Houthis to stand down is closing.
HOW DOES THIS END?
The regional tensions are likely to remain high as long as Israel keeps up its offensive in Gaza, which it says is aimed at crushing Hamas. Many wonder if that's even possible, given the group's deep roots in Palestinian society, and Israel's own leaders say it will take many more months. The U.S., which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support for Israel's offensive, is widely seen as the only power capable of ending it. Iran's allies seem to believe Washington will step in if its own costs get too high — hence the attacks on U.S. bases and international shipping. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock are all back in the region this week, with the aim of trying to contain the violence through diplomacy. But the most important messages will still likely be sent by rocket.
"The Americans do not want an open war with Iran, and the Iranians do not want an open war with the United States," said Ali Hamadeh, an analyst who writes for Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper. "Therefore, there are negotiations by fire."

From Houthis to Hezbollah, a look at Iran-allied groups around Middle East
Associated Press/Mon, January 8, 2024
Missiles, rockets and drones struck targets around the Middle East this week as the United States, Israel and others clashed with Iran-allied militant groups — with attacks hitting in vital Red Sea shipping lanes, along Israeli-Lebanon borders emptied by fleeing residents and around the region's crowded capitals and U.S. military installations. Together, Israel and its U.S. allies were facing two realities they knew all too well going into the war in Gaza: The Gaza-based Hamas militant group is far from alone as it battles for its survival. And by launching an all-out campaign to eliminate Hamas as a fighting force, Israeli and American leaders also are confronting simultaneous attacks from a strengthening defensive alliance of other armed militant groups linked with Hamas and Iran. This week, the risk of being drawn into a wider, more chaotic and deadlier conflict with an array of regional enemies loomed large. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior Biden administration envoys were traveling to Middle East capitals on Friday to calm tensions and deter further attacks. Here's a breakdown of the armed groups facing the United States and Israel in the Middle East, a look at what unites some of them, and what's different about each.
THE SITUATION
The United States is scrambling to quell attacks by a range of armed groups that are allied to Iran and to each other. They are:
— Hamas in Gaza;
— powerful Hezbollah, the dominant force in Lebanon;
— smaller militias in Iraq and Syria;
— Houthis in the poor Arabian peninsula country of Yemen, who are sometimes seen as more of the loose cannons of the alliance. All the groups have escalated attacks on U.S., Israeli or global targets within their reach since Israel launched its war in Gaza on Oct. 7, after Hamas's deadly cross-border raids. The aim of Iran and of the armed groups at large is to aid Hamas with attacks that distract the focus of Israel and the United States, and that make the military, economic and political costs of continuing the war against Hamas too great for Israel and the United States. The groups don't necessarily want further additional escalation themselves, given their odds in any all-out confrontation with two of the world's strongest militaries, experts say. But under the leadership of the late Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by the U.S. in 2020, the far-flung array of Iranian-allied militias knitted themselves into a more cohesive network. They also grew into a common understanding, said Randa Slim, a regional analyst with the Washington-based Middle East Institute: When the survival of any one was threatened, all would rally.
THE PLAYERS:
HAMAS
WHAT: Based in Gaza. Founded in 1987 at a time of widespread protests by Palestinians against Israel's occupation. Has early ties to one of the Sunni world's most prominent groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in the 1920s. Has vowed to annihilate Israel and has carried out suicide bombings and other deadly attacks on civilians and Israeli soldiers. BACKGROUND: Hamas seized control of Gaza by force in 2007, the year after it won parliamentary elections there with 44% of the vote. Israel has kept Gaza under a devastating blockade ever since, restricting movement of people and goods in and out of the territory. Hamas receives backing from Arab and Muslim countries, including Qatar and Turkey. Although a Sunni Muslim group, Hamas leaders have moved closer to Shiite Muslim Iran and its allies over the years. Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks in Israel were seen by many as Hamas's bid to reclaim relevance on the world stage. Israel's far-right government had sidelined any attempt at a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian political agreement, and world attention faded away.
HEZBOLLAH
WHAT: Formed in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where it is based. One of the strongest members of the Iran-allied alliance, militarily and organizationally. A Shiite Muslim group. Took part in repeated attacks against the United States through the mid-1990s, including the deadly 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marines barrack in Beirut, Lebanon's capital. Has participated in Lebanon's government since 1992. Its military wing is stronger than the country's armed forces.
BACKGROUND: A 2006 war with Israel provoked by Hezbollah's kidnapping of Israeli soldiers devastated southern Lebanon and Beirut. Many ordinary Lebanese are deeply fearful of a new war with Israel in the wake of the Gaza fighting. Wary of a repeat of the war itself, Hezbollah has lobbed rockets and missiles across its southern border into Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, losing fighters daily in return fire, but held back from further dramatic escalation. That may have changed with a presumed Israeli strike this week that killed a Hamas leader sheltering in Lebanon. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Friday that his group had to retaliate, or else all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attack.
HOUTHIS
WHAT: Based in Yemen, overseeing one of the world's most vital shipping routes for oil and other trade. Have launched rockets, missiles and drones at commercial vessels during the Gaza war. Forced some major shippers to change route and threatens a potentially major toll on the world's economy. Formally known as Ansar Allah. Had its start as one of several armed groups vying internally for power in fractured, impoverished Yemen. While Shiite Muslim, it's of a different branch than Iran. Group's motto calls for destruction of Israel and the United States, though it has been largely focused on affairs in Yemen.
BACKGROUND: At odds with Yemen's government, Houthis seized control of Yemen's capital in 2014 and soon controlled much of the north. After Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates opened attack in 2015 in an unsuccessful attempt to rout the Houthis, the Houthis moved increasingly close to Iran as a source of materiel support. Saudi and U.S. attempts to formally end the Saudi-led war in Yemen have failed to bring Yemen's war to a close, but had succeeded in stopping what were sporadic missile and drone strikes by the Houthis against their richer Gulf neighbors. The Houthis, who have limited popular support in Yemen outside of their immediate base, are seen as more independent of Iran in their actions than some of the other groups in the alliance. The strikes on shipping since Israel launched its campaign in Gaza are some of the Houthis' first outward-facing attacks, other than at its Gulf enemies.
IRAN-ALLIED MILITIAS IN SYRIA AND IRAQ
WHAT: Array of smaller Iranian-backed militant groups that have battled with U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria for years. Mount sporadic attacks against bases in the region where U.S. troops are deployed to fight Islamic State group insurgents.
BACKGROUND: There has been a dramatic spike in attacks by Iran's proxies in those two countries since the open of the war between Israel and Hamas. Iraq says it is working with the U.S. to contain the militias there. On Thursday, the U.S. unleashed an airstrike against the headquarters of an Iran-backed militia in central Baghdad, killing a high-ranking militia commander. It was an attempt to discourage more attacks.
THE ISLAMIC STATE, AL-QAIDA AND OTHER ARMED SUNNI MUSLIM GROUPS
WHAT: Israel's deadly military campaign in Gaza, and the United States' support for it, are sparking calls to action by violent extremist groups that have long battled the West and other enemies.
BACKGROUND: On Thursday, a spokesman for the Islamic State called on Muslims around the world to carry out killings in what he said would be vengeance for the people of Gaza. "Oh lions of Islam, hunt your prey — the Jews, Christians, and their allies — in the streets and alleyways of America, Europe, and the world," Abu Hudhayfa al-Ansar said in a speech transcribed by the SITE intelligence group. "Break into their homes, kill them, and torment them in every way you can."

Israel warns of 'another war' after Hezbollah strike on sensitive air traffic base
Associated Press/Mon, January 8, 2024
Hezbollah has struck an air traffic control base in northern Israel, the Israeli military said, warning of "another war" with the Iran-backed militant group. The increase in fighting across the border with Lebanon as Israel battles Hamas militants in Gaza gave new urgency to U.S. diplomatic efforts as Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to visit Israel on his latest Mideast tour. "This is a conflict that could easily metastasize, causing even more insecurity and even more suffering," Blinken told reporters after talks in Qatar, a key mediator. The escalation of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has complicated a U.S. push to prevent a regional conflict. The Israeli military said Hezbollah fire hit the sensitive air traffic control base on Mount Meron on Saturday but air defenses were not affected because backup systems were in place. It said that no soldiers were hurt and all damage will be repaired. Nonetheless, it was one of the most serious attacks by Hezbollah in the months of fighting that has accompanied Israel's war in Gaza and forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate communities near the Lebanese border.
Hezbollah described its rocket barrage as an "initial response" to the targeted killing of a top Hamas leader in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut last week, which is presumed to have been carried out by Israel.
The Israeli military chief of staff, Lt. Col. Herzi Halevi, said military pressure on Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, was rising and it would either be effective "or we will get to another war." Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari asserted that Israel's focus on Hezbollah's elite Radwan force was pushing it away from the border. Israel has mostly sought to limit the fighting in its north. Hezbollah's military capabilities are far superior to those of Hamas. But Israeli leaders have said their patience is wearing thin, and that if the tensions cannot be resolved through diplomacy, they are prepared to use force.
"I suggest that Hezbollah learn what Hamas has already learned in recent months: No terrorist is immune," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet. We are determined to defend our citizens and to return the residents of the north safely to their homes."
Lower-intensity fighting along Israel's northern border broke out when Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 250 people hostage. Hezbollah has said its attacks aim to ease pressure on Gaza. In a joint news briefing with Blinken, Qatar's government acknowledged that the killing of the senior Hamas leader in Lebanon could affect the complicated negotiations for the potential release of more hostages held by Hamas in Gaza but "we are continuing our discussions with the parties and trying to achieve as soon as possible an agreement."
Ten people died in violence in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, including a Palestinian man killed by attackers while driving a car with Israeli plates, and a young girl shot as Israeli police fired at a car that rammed a checkpoint.
Inside Gaza, the war entered its fourth month Sunday. The Israeli military has signaled that it has wrapped up major combat in northern Gaza, saying it has completed dismantling Hamas' military infrastructure there. Now it presses its offensive in the south, where most of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians are squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while being pounded by Israeli airstrikes. Netanyahu insists the war will not end until the objectives of eliminating Hamas, getting Israel's hostages returned and ensuring that Gaza won't host a threat to Israel are met. Biden administration officials have urged Israel to wind down its blistering air and ground offensive and shift to more targeted attacks against Hamas leaders.
More than 22,800 Palestinians have been killed and more than 58,000 wounded since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Health officials say about two-thirds of those killed have been women and minors.
An airstrike near the southern city of Rafah killed two journalists on Sunday, including Hamza Dahdouh, the oldest son of Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera's chief correspondent in Gaza, according to the Qatari-owned Arabic-language channel and local medical officials. Al Jazeera broadcast footage of Dahdouh weeping and holding his son's hand. Israel's military had no immediate comment.
Al Jazeera strongly condemned the killings and other "brutal attacks against journalists and their families" by Israeli forces. Dahdouh also lost his wife, two children and a grandchild in an Oct. 26 airstrike, and was wounded in an Israeli strike last month that killed a co-worker.
"The world is blind to what's happening in the Gaza Strip," he said, blinking back tears. Another airstrike hit a house between Khan Younis and the southern city of Rafah, killing at least seven people whose bodies were taken to the nearby European Gaza Hospital, according to an Associated Press journalist at the facility. One man hurried in carrying a baby, and later walked the blanket-wrapped child to the morgue. "Everything happening here is outside the realms of law, outside the realms of reason. Our brains can't fully comprehend all this that is happening to us," said a grieving relative, Inas Abu al-Najja, her quavering voice rising. Men worked the rubble with picks and bare hands. On Sunday, officials at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis received the bodies of 18 people, including 12 children, killed in an Israeli strike late Saturday on a home in the Khan Younis camp set up decades ago to house refugees from the 1948 war over Israel's creation. Israeli forces pushed deeper into the central city of Deir al-Balah, where residents in several neighborhoods were warned that they must evacuate. The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by the French acronym MSF, said it was evacuating its medical staff from Deir al-Balah's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital. A bullet penetrated a wall of the hospital's intensive care unit on Friday, and "drone attacks and sniper fire were just a few hundred meters from the hospital" over the past couple of days, said Carolina Lopez, the group's emergency coordinator there. She said the hospital received between 150 and 200 wounded people daily in recent weeks. The International Rescue Committee and Medical Aid for Palestinians said they also were forced to withdraw from the hospital. "The amount of injuries being brought in over the last few days has been horrific," surgeon Nick Maynard with the IRC medical team said.

A Message From Gazelle Sharmahd
X site/January 08/2024
I attended a joint NGOs meeting at the highest office of the United Nations, the Secretariat General
@antonioguterres
at the UN Headquarters in New York, with Deputy director Niki Ganz and Middle East regional desks officials Chris Steven, Nicola Davies, and Louise Kyriakopoulos.
As a human rights activist and the daughter of Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-American national kidnapped by the Islamic regime and held hostage in Iran on death row, I presented my father’s horrifying case as an example of the crimes against humanity that are continuously being carried out by the regime inside of Iran but also abroad.
In the wake of the bloody violence in Kerman the Islamic Regime propaganda outlet Seda-o-Sima aired again segments involving false accusations and debunked lies against my father and other kidnapped and murdered Europeans and Iranian political prisoners. The former Minister of Intelligence (MOIS), Mahmood Alavi, admitted once again in an interview to committing crimes, such as several kidnappings and assassinations, against EU and US nationals.
The UN’s Working Group of Arbitary detention has ruled in 2022 that the Islamic regime has violated international and human rights laws through the forceful transfer (kidnapping) of my father to Iran. WGAD concludes that extraordinary renditions are not compatible with international law, the illegal detention of my father constitutes a violation of his right to liberty, and refusal to disclose his location for 3 years equals the crime of forced disappearance. The repeated showcasing of his picture, together with propaganda to smear him as a criminal, is in gross violation of all international legal processes, violates the assumption of innocence, and must be stopped. The Working group announced that the reason for the detention of Jimmy Sharmahd is practicing peacefully his right under Article 19 of the Covenant that’s grants freedom of opinion and expression.
The fact that the regime is allowed to publicly and shamelessly continue their abuse and crimes against a German-US national, in order to falsely link him to incidents taking place currently in Iran, while being kidnapped from two countries, which are members of the UN and the Arab League, is repugnant and should draw condemnation from the UN and his two countries of nationality, Germany and the US.
I submitted the dossier of my father to the officers at the Political Department to support WGAD to save my dad’s life, help establish a global Hostage Task Force, and urged the use of all resources to immediately end the execution wave in Iran. In a state under the rule of an organization that bluntly violates all international laws, without an independent judiciary system, these executions are extrajudicial killings and must be treated as such by the United Nations.
I am thankful to the UN officials and the diplomats at the missions, who received us and to my colleagues, who presented cases from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Sudan and more. Such activities on behalf of all Middle Eastern communities in distress are essential and I encourage more activists and human rights groups to join in engaged discussions with the goal to work on solutions

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 08-09/2024
Hochstein's 'blueprint': The geopolitical chess game on the Lebanese-Israeli front
LBCI/Mon, January 8, 2024
First and foremost, Amos Hochstein's request from Israeli officials is the neutralization of the Lebanese army from any military operations at the present stage or in any upcoming developments, particularly if the war with Hezbollah expands, considering the Lebanese army as the primary tool in implementing UN Resolution 1701 and any other security arrangements in southern Lebanon upon reaching a political solution. At this time, information has converged that Hochstein is formulating a plan to address the border situation between Lebanon and Israel. The formulation of this plan is ongoing despite Israel's insistence that Hezbollah cease fire first. This is despite Hezbollah's insistence on not discussing any plan before a ceasefire in Gaza. The sources suggest that the Americans want the plan to be ready the moment military operations cease and actual implementation begins, addressing "reservations" along the Blue Line, addressing breaches in the vicinity of Mari and northern Ghajar, and dealing with the situation of the Shebaa Farms and Kfarchouba. Notably, this point is the most contentious due to its connection to a Syrian position. Lebanon has informed the Americans and Europeans that if the Israelis agree to resolve this issue, it would imply resolving it with Syria. Sources also mention American-European coordination regarding the implementation of Resolution 1701 and addressing border issues, working to alleviate tension, at least in the current stage. The Americans intend to brief members of the Quintet Committee on their actions, and movement by this committee towards Lebanon is expected by the end of this month, led by French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian, with meetings and activities anticipated in Riyadh and Doha preceding that.

Israel focuses on central and south Gaza as top US diplomat seeks de-escalation
Associated Press/Mon, January 8, 2024
Medics, patients and displaced people are fleeing from the main hospital in central Gaza as the fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants draws closer, witnesses said Monday. Losing the facility would be another major blow to a health system shattered by three months of war. Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups withdrew from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in recent days, saying it is too dangerous. That spread panic among people sheltering there, causing many to join the hundreds of thousands who have fled to the south of the besieged territory.
Israel says it has largely wrapped up major operations in northern Gaza and is now focusing on the central region and the southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli officials have said the fighting will continue for many more months as the army seeks to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken during the militant group's Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. The offensive has already killed over 22,000 Palestinians, devastated vast swaths of the Gaza Strip, displaced nearly 85% of its population of 2.3 million and left a quarter of its residents facing starvation. It has also threatened to ignite a wider war with Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militant groups allied with Hamas. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in the region this week. The U.S., which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support for the offensive, has called on Israel to take greater measures to spare civilians but has also joined it in rejecting international calls for a cease-fire.
'SICKENING SCENES' IN GAZA'S OVERWHELMED HOSPITALS
Tens of thousands of people have sought shelter in Gaza's hospitals, which are also struggling to treat dozens of people wounded each day in Israeli strikes. Only 13 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are even partially functioning, according to the U.N. humanitarian office. Omar al-Darawi, an employee at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said the facility has been struck multiple times in recent days. He said thousands of people left after the aid groups pulled out, and that patients have been concentrated on one floor so the remaining doctors can tend to them more easily.
"We have large numbers of wounded who can't move" he said. "They need special care, which is unavailable."More dead and wounded arrive each day as Israeli forces advance in central Gaza following heavy airstrikes. The Health Ministry said early Monday that 73 bodies and 99 wounded were brought to the hospital in just the last 24 hours. World Health Organization staff who visited Sunday saw "sickening scenes of people of all ages being treated on blood-streaked floors and in chaotic corridors," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the U.N. agency, said in a statement. "The bloodbath in Gaza must end."
DIRE CONDITIONS IN THE ISOLATED NORTH
The situation is even more dire in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces cut off from the rest of the territory in late October. Entire neighborhoods have been demolished, and hundreds of thousands of people have fled, while those who remain face severe shortages of food and water. The WHO said late Sunday it has not been able to deliver supplies to northern Gaza in 12 days. Even there, Israel is still battling what it describes as pockets of militants. An airstrike early Sunday flattened a four-story home filled with displaced people in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, killing at least 70, including women and children, according to Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza's civil defense. There was no immediate confirmation from the Health Ministry, which has struggled to maintain its operations in the north. Search efforts were still underway on Monday. The civil defense circulated a graphic video showing the aftermath of attack, with several bodies scattered among the rubble. Jabaliya, which was built for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation and is now a dense, built-up neighborhood, has seen weeks of heavy fighting. More than 22,800 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 58,000 wounded, since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Health officials say about two-thirds of those killed have been women and minors. Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates in heavily populated residential areas, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes. The military says it has killed some 8,000 militants, without providing evidence, and that 176 of its own soldiers have been killed in the offensive.
SEEKING TO HEAD OFF A WIDER WAR
Blinken, who met with the leaders of Jordan and Qatar on Sunday, once again spoke of the need for Israel to adjust its military operations to minimize harm to civilians and allow more aid into the territory. But his main focus appeared to be preventing the war from spreading. The killing of a senior Hamas leader in a strike in Beirut last week ratcheted up tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border, where Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, have been regularly trading fire since the start of the war. A Hezbollah rocket barrage hit a sensitive air traffic base in northern Israel on Saturday in one of the biggest attacks in three months of low-intensity fighting along the border. The militant group said was an "initial response" to the killing of Hamas' deputy political leader Saleh Arouri. Israel has mostly sought to limit the fighting in its north, but its leaders say their patience is wearing thin, and that if the tensions cannot be resolved through diplomacy, they are prepared to go to war. Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack ignited the war. Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel that day, mostly civilians, and took some 250 people hostage, over 100 of whom were released during a cease-fire in November. Hezbollah has said its attacks, which have driven tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes, aim to ease pressure on Gaza. But the group appears wary of risking an all-out war that would bring massive destruction to Lebanon.

One in 100 people in Gaza has been killed since October 7
Ivana Kottasová, Kareem Khadder and Richard Allen Greene, CNN/Mon, January 8, 2024
About one in every 100 people in Gaza has been killed since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7, according to Palestinian statistics. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah announced in its daily update on Monday that at least 22,835 people have been killed in the besieged enclave since the beginning of the war. That staggering death toll means that 1% of the enclave’s total pre-war population of 2.27 million people has now has been wiped out. According to the ministry, an additional 58,416 people have been injured, which means more than one in 40 Gazans have now been wounded in the conflict. The ministry generates its data from hospitals in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Last month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it believed that it had killed two Palestinian civilians for every Hamas militant, a ratio an IDF spokesperson described to CNN at that time as “tremendously positive.” Israel has also claimed that more than 8,000 of the dead are militants. The IDF began its operation in Gaza immediately after Hamas launched a terror attack into southern Israel on October 7. Its militants killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped some 200 others. Some of the hostages who were taken to Gaza have since been released by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. As of last week, the Israeli government believed 132 hostages from October 7 were still being held in Gaza, of whom dozens are thought dead.
One in 120 children is dead
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that more than 5,300 of the dead are women and more than 9,000 were children. With the pre-war child population of Gaza at about 1.1 million, according to UNICEF, this means that one out of every approximately 120 children living in the enclave has been killed.
A separate statistic released by the international organization Save the Children said more than 10 children on average have lost one or both of their legs every day in Gaza since October. International organizations have been warning that the humanitarian crisis inside Gaza is now so deep that people are at risk of dying of starvation. According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), 90% of Gazans have been displaced. UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths said last week that famine was “around the corner” as people in Gaza face the “highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded.”The youngest children are most at risk of starvation, according to a UNICEF statement last month. The children’s aid organization estimated that in the coming weeks, “at least 10,000 children under five years will suffer the most life-threatening form of malnutrition, known as severe wasting, and will need therapeutic foods.”The lack of sanitation for the displaced now packed into parts of southern Gaza has led to the spread of contagious and respiratory diseases. Diseases that would normally be easily curable are becoming deadly because of the lack of even the most basic medical equipment.

Israeli man pleads for his release in latest Gaza hostage video
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/Mon, January 8, 2024
Elad Katzir, an Israeli farmer held hostage in Gaza for over three months, was seen pleading for his freedom in a video posted online by Palestinian group Islamic Jihad on Monday. Hamas, which rules Gaza, and its smaller rival Islamic Jihad, have periodically released videos of hostages taken during Hamas' Oct. 7 cross-border rampage into southern Israel. "I was close to dying more than once, it's a miracle I'm still alive," Katzir said, a black and yellow Islamic Jihad flag hung from a wall behind him. "I want to tell my family that I love them very much and I miss them very much," he said, before pausing to choke back tears. Typically, hostage videos have been filmed in front of a wall in poor lighting, with captives reciting calls for their release. The men, like Katzir in the latest video, often have full beards. The Israeli military has said the videos amount to "psychological terror". More than 130 hostages remain in Gaza, most believed to be in Hamas hands, after more than 100 were released during a short-lived truce in late November. Israel says it will press on with its devastating military offensive in Gaza until Hamas is wiped out, all captives are freed and the Palestinian enclave poses no more security threat. Hamas has said it will free no more hostages at least until Israel halts the war. Katzir, 47, was snatched by militants from the agricultural kibbutz of Nir Oz. His father was killed in his home there during Hamas' incursion and his mother was also taken hostage. She was among those later freed during the truce. Katzir appeared in a similar video from captivity last month. Katzir was interviewed by Reuters in 2018 while working in the fields and spoke about the threat he and his neighbours felt from Hamas across the nearby border in Gaza. "There is a chance that a sniper from the other side is watching me and I'm already in his sights," Katzir said at the time. "Instead of caring for the welfare of people in Gaza they deal with terror and in how to harm us."

Pro-Palestinian protesters block New York City bridges, tunnel
Shannon Stapleton/Mon, January 8, 2024
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked several New York City bridges and a tunnel on Monday to demand an immediate ceasefire in the three-month-old Israel-Hamas conflict. Dozens of demonstrators sat in the roadway and chanted slogans while holding up traffic on the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges across the East River, as well as at the Holland Tunnel connecting New York City with New Jersey across the Hudson River, local media reported. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the Holland Tunnel, said on its website that the lanes to New Jersey were closed "due to police activity." Video posted on social media showed protesters chanting: "NYPD, KKK, IDF they’re all the same," referring to the New York Police Department, Ku Klux Klan and the Israel Defense Forces. Protesters at the Holland Tunnel carried banners that said "Lift the siege on Gaza," "Ceasefire Now" and "End the occupation." The protests were organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, the Palestinian Youth Movement and the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, among other groups, they said on X, formerly called Twitter. "The siege on Gaza needs to end and I'm ready to put my body on the line to end it," said one protester as she was led away by a police officer with her hands behind her back, video showed. Israel's campaign in Hamas-run Gaza has so far killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, local health officials say, while Israel says Hamas holds more than 100 hostages of 240 seized during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Israel accuses Hamas of operating among civilians and has released videos and photos it says support the claim. Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, denies the accusation.

Israel hits south Gaza as top US diplomat Blinken seeks de-escalation
AFP/January 08, 2024
Gaza’s health ministry said 73 dead and 99 wounded had arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah city over the previous 24 hours
Two journalists working for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network were killed on Sunday Gaza Strip, Palestinian Territories: Israel hit targets in south Gaza and across its border with Lebanon, the army said Monday ahead of a visit by the top US diplomat who is seeking to avert a wider war.
Gaza’s health ministry said 73 dead and 99 wounded had arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah city over the previous 24 hours. Three months into its battle with Gaza-based Hamas militants, Israel’s army says its focus has moved from the northern Gaza Strip to “dismantling” militants in the center and south of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory. In the southern city of Khan Yunis, troops and warplanes overnight Sunday-Monday struck 30 militant targets which a military statement described as “significant.” These included underground targets and weapons storage facilities, it said. A drone also killed 10 militants “preparing to launch rockets toward Israeli territory,” the statement added. Also overnight, the military said it had hit “numerous Hezbollah targets” in Lebanon. Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, a Hamas ally, have engaged in regular cross-border fire during the war that began an October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack against Israel. But a strike last week in a Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah has been a major factor contributing to rising fears of spreading conflict. A US Defense Department official has told AFP that Israel carried out the strike that killed Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh Al-Aruri. The Hamas attack which triggered the war resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants, considered a “terrorist” group by the United States and European Union, also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain captive, Israel says. At least 24 are believed to have been killed. Israel has responded with relentless bombardment and a ground invasion that have killed at least 22,835 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry. On his fourth regional trip since the war began, Blinken held talks earlier Monday with President of the UAE Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Blinken’s visit comes alongside that of other top Western diplomats trying to stop the conflict from spreading and to boost desperately needed aid to Gazans. In Qatar on Sunday, Blinken warned that the violence could “easily metastasize” into a regional conflict. Over the weekend Qatari officials also hosted relatives of captives still held in Gaza, said Ruby Chen, father of 19-year-old captive Itay Chen. The release of more hostages “serves the bigger objective, as they see it, which is creating regional stability,” Chen said on returning to Tel Aviv. Qatar earlier helped mediate a one-week truce that saw dozens of hostages freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Talks with Hamas on a new truce are “ongoing,” the emirate’s prime minister said.
Since October, violence has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched more than 100 drone and missile strikes toward targets in the Red Sea, a major global trade route, and Israel. Washington, Israel’s main ally that provides it with billions of dollars in military aid, has grown increasingly concerned over the war’s civilian death toll. Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced, according to the United Nations, leaving them in overcrowded shelters or tents in the winter chill. The World Health Organization has warned of the risk of famine and disease, with only minimal aid entering as people struggle to find water and other necessities. Washington has said Blinken will press Israel on its compliance with international humanitarian law and ask for “immediate measures” to boost aid to Gaza. “Our home and my son’s home have been destroyed and we have 20 people martyred in our family. I don’t know where we will go even if I survive,” said Gaza resident Nabil Fathi, 51. Two journalists working for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network were killed on Sunday when their car was struck in southern Gaza’s city of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, the broadcaster said.
They were named as Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer who also worked for AFP and other media organizations, and Hamza Wael Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief who had been wounded in an earlier strike, after his wife and two other children were killed in an Israeli bombardment.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 79 journalists and media professionals, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed since the war began. Al-Aqsa hospital, which received the additional wounded on Monday, is one of Gaza’s few still partly functioning, but on Sunday the UN reported “sickening scenes of people of all ages being treated on blood-streaked floors and in chaotic corridors.”Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari on Saturday said forces had “dismantled” Hamas’s military leadership in northern Gaza, leaving militants there operating only sporadically without leadership.
His comment came weeks after Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in November that Hamas had “lost control” of Gaza, which it has ruled since 2007. Live AFPTV images on Monday showed black smoke rising over Gaza’s central and southern areas, with explosions sounding. A military statement said troops had discovered a Hamas underground “weapons production site” in morth Gaza. It also released footage of what it said were operations in the northern district of Shujaiya targeting Islamic Jihad, a militant group fighting alongside Hamas. Despite the devastation and deprivation in Gaza’s north, members of the minority Greek Orthodox community on Sunday attended Christmas mass inside Gaza City’s richly decorated Church of Saint Porphyrius.

Israel focuses on central and south Gaza as top US diplomat seeks de-escalation
Associated Press/January 08, 2024
Medics, patients and displaced people are fleeing from the main hospital in central Gaza as the fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants draws closer, witnesses said Monday. Losing the facility would be another major blow to a health system shattered by three months of war. Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups withdrew from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in recent days, saying it is too dangerous. That spread panic among people sheltering there, causing many to join the hundreds of thousands who have fled to the south of the besieged territory. Israel says it has largely wrapped up major operations in northern Gaza and is now focusing on the central region and the southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli officials have said the fighting will continue for many more months as the army seeks to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken during the militant group's Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. The offensive has already killed over 22,000 Palestinians, devastated vast swaths of the Gaza Strip, displaced nearly 85% of its population of 2.3 million and left a quarter of its residents facing starvation. It has also threatened to ignite a wider war with Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militant groups allied with Hamas. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is back in the region this week. The U.S., which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support for the offensive, has called on Israel to take greater measures to spare civilians but has also joined it in rejecting international calls for a cease-fire.
'SICKENING SCENES' IN GAZA'S OVERWHELMED HOSPITALS
Tens of thousands of people have sought shelter in Gaza's hospitals, which are also struggling to treat dozens of people wounded each day in Israeli strikes. Only 13 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are even partially functioning, according to the U.N. humanitarian office. Omar al-Darawi, an employee at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said the facility has been struck multiple times in recent days. He said thousands of people left after the aid groups pulled out, and that patients have been concentrated on one floor so the remaining doctors can tend to them more easily. "We have large numbers of wounded who can't move" he said. "They need special care, which is unavailable." More dead and wounded arrive each day as Israeli forces advance in central Gaza following heavy airstrikes. The Health Ministry said early Monday that 73 bodies and 99 wounded were brought to the hospital in just the last 24 hours. World Health Organization staff who visited Sunday saw "sickening scenes of people of all ages being treated on blood-streaked floors and in chaotic corridors," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the U.N. agency, said in a statement. "The bloodbath in Gaza must end."
DIRE CONDITIONS IN THE ISOLATED NORTH
The situation is even more dire in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces cut off from the rest of the territory in late October. Entire neighborhoods have been demolished, and hundreds of thousands of people have fled, while those who remain face severe shortages of food and water. The WHO said late Sunday it has not been able to deliver supplies to northern Gaza in 12 days. Even there, Israel is still battling what it describes as pockets of militants. An airstrike early Sunday flattened a four-story home filled with displaced people in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp, killing at least 70, including women and children, according to Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza's civil defense. There was no immediate confirmation from the Health Ministry, which has struggled to maintain its operations in the north. Search efforts were still underway on Monday. The civil defense circulated a graphic video showing the aftermath of attack, with several bodies scattered among the rubble. Jabaliya, which was built for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation and is now a dense, built-up neighborhood, has seen weeks of heavy fighting.
More than 22,800 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 58,000 wounded, since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Health officials say about two-thirds of those killed have been women and minors.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the group operates in heavily populated residential areas, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes. The military says it has killed some 8,000 militants, without providing evidence, and that 176 of its own soldiers have been killed in the offensive.
SEEKING TO HEAD OFF A WIDER WAR
Blinken, who met with the leaders of Jordan and Qatar on Sunday, once again spoke of the need for Israel to adjust its military operations to minimize harm to civilians and allow more aid into the territory. But his main focus appeared to be preventing the war from spreading. The killing of a senior Hamas leader in a strike in Beirut last week ratcheted up tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border, where Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, have been regularly trading fire since the start of the war. A Hezbollah rocket barrage hit a sensitive air traffic base in northern Israel on Saturday in one of the biggest attacks in three months of low-intensity fighting along the border. The militant group said was an "initial response" to the killing of Hamas' deputy political leader Saleh Arouri. Israel has mostly sought to limit the fighting in its north, but its leaders say their patience is wearing thin, and that if the tensions cannot be resolved through diplomacy, they are prepared to go to war. Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack ignited the war. Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel that day, mostly civilians, and took some 250 people hostage, over 100 of whom were released during a cease-fire in November. Hezbollah has said its attacks, which have driven tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes, aim to ease pressure on Gaza. But the group appears wary of risking an all-out war that would bring massive destruction to Lebanon.

‘Freedom is paid for in blood’: In the occupied West Bank, families long to bury their dead
© Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24/Mon, January 8, 2024
An Israeli strike killed six Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, four of whom were brothers. The attack took place in the city of Jenin and left a total of seven dead, including an Israeli police officer. As the family of the brothers buried their “martyrs”, others are still waiting for the remains of relatives held by the Israeli army to be returned. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t speak. Ibtesam Darwish simply looks stunned. “I wasn’t just their mother, I was their friend,” she says. “We were so close.” Sitting in her neighbour’s courtyard in Qabatiya, a city in the northern occupied West Bank, she waits for the remains of her sons. Twenty-two-year-old Rami, 24-year-old Ahamed, 27-year-old Hazaa and 29-year-old Alaa were killed along with two others in an Israeli airstrike near the entrance to Jenin at 6am on Sunday in an area called Martyr’s Triangle. A seventh person died of their wounds later that day. Ibtesam knew her boys weren’t at home. They wanted to watch the Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp. “Early in the morning, I saw that there had been a drone attack and that four members of the same family had been killed,” she says softly. “I called them immediately but nobody picked up. I left them a voice message asking them to call me back straight away,” she continues. “It was on social media that I found out they had been killed.”

Jordan’s King Abdullah: Israel’s ‘brutal’ war creates generation of Gaza orphans
REUTERS/January 08, 2024
AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Monday that Israel had created a whole generation of orphans with its “brutal” war in Gaza, where he said over 30,000 people, mostly women and children, had been killed or were missing as a result of the conflict. In remarks at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, where the monarch spoke of “unspeakable crimes” during that African conflict, Abdullah said a lesson to be drawn was that Israel’s “indiscriminate aggression” in Gaza would never guarantee its security. His remarks were carried on state media following a statement by the royal palace. “More children have died in Gaza than in all other conflicts around the world this past year. Of those who have survived, many have lost one or both parents, an entire generation of orphans,” he said. “How can indiscriminate aggression and shelling bring peace? How can they guarantee security, when they are build on hatred?,” Abdullah said of Israel’s war against the militant group Hamas. The monarch, who toured the Rwandan Genocide Memorial site and wrote comments on a visitors’ list, was briefed on the exhibits that retold the horror of the 1994 killings. He said Rwanda’s experience “teaches us we must fight the dehumanizing rhetoric that fuels conflict.”“Your story can be a beacon for us all — how the people of this country took action after this unspeakable crime of crimes, and worked toward reconciliation, to heal old wounds and prevent genocide from happening again,” he said in televised remarks.

Israel picks former Supreme Court President Aharon Barack to serve on ICJ genocide panel
Clyde Hughes/UPI/Mon, January 8, 2024
Israel's High Court President, Aharon Barak appears during their meeting at the Spanish Parliament, in Madrid, on February 7, 2006. He will represent Israel in the International Court of Justice in January.  Former Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak will join the International Court of Justice panel as it takes up charges of genocide against Israel over its war with Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved Barak, a Holocaust survivor, to the panel after Israel was allowed to appoint a judge under ICJ rules as it did not have a justice from its country already among the jurists. Barak was approved for the position despite the former Supreme Court president opposing efforts by Netanyahu's party efforts to weaken the high court's authority. Israel's leadership was split on Barak's appointment, with many in Netanyahu's coalition voicing their displeasure about the pick. The Likud Party's Tally Gotliv cited past comments by Barak in which he said he "let the Israelite Party win too much" in some of his rulings in a post on X denouncing the decision. "The one who went against the government and presented it in a negative light will now represent the country? And this is under the auspices of a right-wing government. Extraordinary," she wrote. Opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid hailed the decision. "This is not the first time the State of Israel needs the mind, infinite knowledge and unique international status of Justice Aharon Barak," said the leader of the Yesh Atid Party. "I congratulate him on his appointment and wish him the best of luck." On Dec. 29, South Africa filed formal charges of genocide against Israel in the ICJ. South Africa charged that Israel's response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel was "genocidal in nature" against the Palestinian people. South Africa is expected to make its case in front of the court at The Hauge, Netherlands on Thursday and Israel on Friday. Israel plans to highlight the surprise attack of Hamas against Israel where an estimated 1,200 were killed. It will also expected to focus on the more than 100 Israeli civilians held hostage by Hamas.

Israeli forces say they locate large underground weapons factory in Gaza
AL BUREIJ, Gaza (Reuters)/Mon, January 8, 2024
Israeli forces located what they said was the largest weapons production site so far found in Gaza, with underground workshops they said were used to produce long-range missiles capable of hitting targets in northern Israel. The military said that in addition to missiles, the workshops produced copies or adaptations of standard munitions like mortar shells and were connected through underground shafts to a tunnel network used to transport the weapons to fighting units throughout the Gaza Strip. On Monday, the Israeli military took a group of reporters to visit the site in the Bureij area in the middle of the narrow coastal enclave, which has been devastated by weeks of bombardment and ground fighting. A variety of metal tubes and components as well as shell casings were stacked in an overground workshop area, while in another area, long metal racks holding missiles could be seen, with an elevator leading down into the tunnel. "...From the elevator, they contain the rockets in a place which is safe and then it goes down to other areas inside the tunnel system," chief military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. "In one place you make the rockets, another place you launch," he said. The site was the latest in a series of extensive tunnel installations to be captured by the military since the invasion of Gaza, launched in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas. Israeli officials say Hamas deliberately locates military infrastructure including tunnels in civilian areas in order to make it more difficult to attack it. Hamas denies this and says Israel attacks civilian targets indiscriminately. More than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli operation, according to Palestinian health officials, and most of the 2.3 million population has been forced to flee their homes to a small area in the south. Israel's biggest ever operation in Gaza was launched in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas gunmen who killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel and seized some 240 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Iran backs Iraqi call to end presence of US-led force
AFP/January 08, 2024
TEHRAN: Iran on Monday threw its weight behind calls from Iraq to oust the US-led anti-Daesh coalition from its territory after a US strike killed a militia commander in Baghdad. “Regarding Iraq and the actions that the American government took recently, the Iraqi government has clearly announced its position,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told a press conference. Iran is confident that its neighbor has “the ability, strength, and authority necessary to maintain security” on its territory alone, Kanani said. “We have repeatedly expressed our views to the authorities of the countries of the region, including Iraq, and declared that the presence of American forces in any form whatsoever ... would not help to maintain stability and peace,” he said. A US drone strike on Thursday killed a military commander and another member of Harakat Al-Nujaba, a faction of Hashd Al-Shaabi — a collection of mainly pro-Iran former paramilitary units now integrated into Iraq’s armed forces. Washington called the attack in Baghdad an act of self-defense, but Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani’s government decried it as an act of “blatant aggression” by the US-led coalition. Al-Sudani said on Friday he was determined to “put an end” to the anti-Daesh coalition. His government relies on support from Tehran-aligned parties, and he has repeatedly said in recent weeks he would like to see foreign troops leave Iraq. Regional tensions are soaring, with the repercussions of the Israel-Hamas war being increasingly felt in Iraq and across the Middle East. The US and other coalition forces in Iraq, deployed since 2014 in the fight against Daesh, have come under regular attack since the fighting erupted on Oct. 7 between Israel and Hamas. Washington says there have been more than 100 attacks on its forces in Iraq and Syria since mid-October. Most have been claimed by a loose alliance of Iran-linked armed groups that oppose American support for Israel in the Gaza war.The US has around 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the multinational coalition set up at the height of IS’s territorial gains. Other coalition partners include France, Spain, and Britain. In late 2017, Iraq declared victory over Daesh, but remaining Daesh cells in remote northern areas continue to launch sporadic attacks.

Crown prince meets US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in AlUla
ARAB NEWS/January 08, 2024
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Winter Tent in AlUla on Monday. During the meeting, the crown prince and Blinken reviewed aspects of bilateral relations, areas of joint cooperation, and ways of developing it to achieve the common interests of Saudi Arabia and the US. They also exchanged views on regional and international developments and efforts being made toward them in order to achieve security and stability, especially the latest developments in the situation in Gaza. The crown prince stressed the importance of stopping military operations in Gaza, intensifying humanitarian aid efforts, and working to create conditions for the return of stability. He also urged a return to the peace track that would ensure the Palestinian people obtain their legitimate rights and achieve lasting peace. Blinken is on a regional tour as part of a diplomatic push to stop the war in Gaza spreading further. Earlier on Monday, Blinken visited Abu Dhabi where he met with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and underscored the importance of urgently addressing humanitarian needs in Gaza He also visited Jordan and Qatar on Sunday.

The West must shoot down Putin's spy drones
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon/The Telegraph/January 8, 2024
If there remains any confusion between the approach to the war in Ukraine between Russia and Nato, the news that Russian drones are observing Ukrainian tank crews and soldiers training in Germany should be a sharp kick in the solar plexus for Nato commanders and political leaders in the West. Not only are Russian drones seemingly active in Europe, but it bears repeating that we are only a mistake or misunderstanding from an Article 5 event which would bring Nato straight into conflict with Moscow. The fact that Russia is apparently restarting its Cold War “SMERSH” counter-intelligence organisation of James Bond fame underlines how these are the actions of an aggressor against all of us, not a passive adversary. The Russians are changing the security climate and we must act now to prevent wider conflict. I tend to agree with the recent remarks of the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau that Nato has a three-year window in which to avoid war with Russia. The Kremlin is very clearly fighting a ‘total war’ directly against Ukraine and indirectly against Nato, turning tractor factories into tank production and spending 30% of its country’s wealth on weapons. Meanwhile, the UK is allegedly mothballing warships for lack of sailors, and is said to be short of numbers for this month’s officer training at Sandhurst. Not that there are any shortage of young men and women who want to join the military in the UK, but anybody with a modicum of understanding of today’s youngsters knows that a 12-month job application is at least 9 months too long.
The German tank ranges and training areas currently under surveillance from Moscow is where I and many British and American tank commanders spent many months honing our skills for the First and Second Gulf Wars. It is unconscionable to me that we are allowing Russia to spy on the Ukrainian forces training there. If true, these drones are either being operated by Russian special forces in Europe, or they are large drones which will have travelled hundreds if not thousands of miles from Russian territory unfettered. I can think of no military reason to not shoot these drones down. Though to the uninitiated this may seem a minor incursion, I hope the military and security experts advising ministers in Whitehall and across Europe are disabusing them of any hesitancy. Giving Russia ‘freedom of manoeuvre’ around Europe will not only affect Ukrainian military capabilities but will allow Moscow to hoover up large amounts of intelligence on our capabilities. If we do not act, Putin may conclude that the West is far more interested in 2024’s elections than backing Ukraine to the hilt. This sort of encouragement is all Putin needs to go full out with his invasion of Ukraine and perhaps beyond. Axiomatically, it is the West’s desire not to get fully engaged in supporting Ukraine that is most likely to lead to Nato troops becoming directly engaged in the fight in Ukraine and Europe.
It is much better, and safer, to enable Ukraine with our full support now rather than have a war in Europe which could devastate all for generations, as the last war in Europe did. The domestic concerns vexing us and focusing on politicians now would become horrifically irrelevant. This must be the year we get serious. And we can start by shooting down these pesky drones. Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is former Commanding Officer of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment. He is a regular contributor on our daily podcast, ‘Ukraine: The Latest’.

Ukraine special forces say they helped destroy a Russian weapons system that was blocking satellite comms
Thibault Spirlet/Business Insider/Mon, January 8, 2024
Ukrainian special forces said they helped destroy a Russian weapons system in occupied Luhansk. A Telegram post said the electronic system, Tirada-2, was blocking satellite communications. Russia has been developing electronic-warfare systems to try to cut Ukraine's access to Starlink. Ukraine's special-operations forces said they helped destroy a Russian military system that was blocking satellite communications. A Telegram post on Monday said special forces spotted the Tirada-2 electronic-warfare system as part of reconnaissance operations in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region. Using the coordinates, they then directed fire from a Ukrainian missile unit, which "completely destroyed" it, Ukrinform described the post as saying. A video embedded in the post appears to show the missile strike. The Tirada-2, also known as Tirada-2S, is a portable radio-electronic suppression system designed to interfere with communication satellites, the defense and security publication Army Recognition reported. Russia developed it in 2018, and it was sighted by Ukraine for the first time in the occupied region of Luhansk in 2019, Ukraine's special-operations forces said. Ukraine has previously targeted Russia's electronic-warfare systems. In July 2023, it appeared to destroy a Tirada and a "Leer-2" electronic system with drones in a video shared on Facebook by the command of the special-operations forces. Access to satellites has played a critical role in Ukraine's defense against Russia, notably access to Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network. In addition to keeping Ukrainians online and its companies running, satellite internet access has facilitated communication between soldiers on the front lines and even allowed weapons systems and drones to continue operating. But Starlink has not always been available to Ukraine. Musk cut Ukraine's access to Starlink during a Ukrainian attack on Russia's Black Sea Fleet in September 2022, citing concerns about the conflict escalating into a nuclear war. The digital magazine SpaceWatch Global reported that Russia was trying to develop an arsenal of electronic-warfare systems aimed at jamming communication satellites. Besides the Tirada-2, Russia was developing the R-330Zh Zhitel, a mobile truck-mounted jamming communication station, and Bylina-MM, a system designed to suppress communications satellites, the magazine reported. The Washington Post reported in April 2023 that Russia had also been testing Tobol electronic-warfare systems in a bid to disrupt Starlink's transmissions in Ukraine, citing a classified US intelligence report.

Russia struggled to push the Ukrainians into the river after its planes were shot down, intel says, showing how a surprising failure at the war's start is still a problem
Business Insider/Mon, January 8, 2024
Russia had relied on air support to attack Ukrainian advances in a southern sector of the front. But Kyiv recently shot down several fighter jets, putting that strategy in jeopardy. It all comes back to key failures Russia made at the start of the war, Western intelligence says. Russia has been unable to effectively drive Ukrainian forces from a key battlefield sector after the recent loss of several aircraft in combat. It shows how a surprising failure at the start of the full-scale war continues to haunt Moscow, according to Western intelligence. Ukrainian forces in the fall established a bridgehead, or a strong foothold, on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River near the southern city of Kherson. The river had long been a critical natural barrier preventing advances, but Kyiv made a bold strategic move that is reigniting this area of the front. To drive the Ukrainians back, Russia turned to its available airpower to attack the Ukrainian bridgehead, but that changed on Dec. 22, when Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuk, the commander of Ukraine's air force, said his troops shot down three Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers over southern Ukraine. After the losses, the Russian air force almost completely stopped its crewed combat operations in the southern area through the end of the month, Britain's defense ministry said in a Saturday intelligence update. The update added that there is a "realistic possibility" the the lack of support from the air "contributed to the failure" of Moscow's ground troops to clear the
More recently, "Russia has again increased tactical air strikes around the bridgehead, but at a lower level than before the shootdowns," the intelligence update read. "This once again demonstrates that Russia's inability to establish air superiority in the early stages" of the invasion "continues to undermine their daily operations," it added. One of many mistakes the Russian military made when it launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was that it failed to lead the assault with a substantial air campaign. The Russian military was expected to clear the way for its ground assault with airpower that would destroy the Ukrainian air defenses and secure air superiority, but the Russian air force was largely missing in action, surprising many observers.
That unforced failure to commit its air forces to the fight at the start has been seen as a major blunder, one that helped give the Ukrainians a fighting chance. Russia never got the same opportunity again, and it has paid heavily for that mistake with lost fighters and helicopters in the time since.
Moscow has demonstrated that it can outmatch Kyiv in the skies thanks to disparities in force size, electronic and technical capabilities, and missile and radar performance, but neither Russia nor Ukraine has managed to establish air superiority because the formidable surface-to-air missile system capabilities on both sides. The airspace above the battlefield in Ukraine has remained contested. Ukraine is hoping that its fortunes will change with the expected eventual arrival of US-made F-16 fighter jets, a handful of which have been pledged to Kyiv by some of its European backers. But when, exactly, these advanced aircraft are slated to arrive is unclear and could still be months away, if not longer.Regardless of when they arrive, questions remain over how much of an impact the F-16s will actually have in the war. Aviation experts and former US military pilots previously told Business Insider that the fighter jets can be used in a variety of roles — both offensively and defensively — like fending off Russian missile attacks or striking ground assets — but might be vulnerable to the Russian military's more advanced air defenses.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 08-09/2024
How Biden Can Immediately End Iranian-backed Attacks in the Red Sea
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute./January 8, 2024
The Biden administration needs to understand that, when it comes to dealing with autocratic states like Russia and Iran, brute force is the only language they understand, whereas the slightest hint of weakness will be gleefully exploited to their benefit.
It would be preferable to have Iran concerned about US action, whether military or addressing the regime's hold on power.
Rather than worrying about the response US-led military action might provoke from Iran, the US and its allies need to demonstrate that they will decisively confront the terror tactics adopted by Iran and its proxies, and authorise the uncompromising military action that will end the Houthis' attacks on key shipping routes once and for all.
If the Biden administration is really serious about tackling the threat posed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels to international shipping in the Red Sea, it needs to authorise the type of decisive military action that will deter the Iranian proxy from undertaking further attacks. Pictured: Houthi fast attack boats from Yemen surround and capture the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea off Hudaydah, Yemen on November 20, 2023. (Photo by Houthi Movement via Getty Images)
If the Biden administration is really serious about tackling the threat posed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels to international shipping in the Red Sea, it needs to authorise the type of decisive military action that will deter the Iranian proxy from undertaking further attacks.
At a time when Iran is reluctant to provoke a direct confrontation with the US and its allies in response to the Gaza crisis, Tehran has instead opted to use its various proxies in the Middle East to do its dirty work.
This has resulted in Hezbollah, the Shia Muslim terrorist organisation that Iran controls in southern Lebanon, to launch daily attacks against northern Israel, while Iranian-backed militias have targeted US military assets in Syria and Iraq more than 100 times just since mid-October and at least 151 times since President Joe Biden has been in office, to drive the US out of the oil-rich Middle East.
By far the most successful strategy, though, has been Iran's effort to disrupt global shipping in the Red Sea by encouraging its Houthi allies in Yemen to intensify their attacks in the region.
The Houthis have relied heavily on Iran for military and financial support during Yemen's long-running civil war. The majority of the long-range missiles and drones used by the Houthis are of Iranian origin.
Western security officials now believe Iran is providing the Houthis with the military assistance required to target international shipping in the Red Sea as part of a concerted effort to disrupt the global economy.
The majority of the Houthi attacks have taken place in the 16-mile-wide Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, connecting the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, which is a key access point for the Suez Canal. An estimated 12% of global trade passes through the route, a vital passage for shipments of oil from the Gulf to Europe and North America.
Targeting global shipping is a tried and trusted tactic of the Iranian regime. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Iran regularly attempted to disrupt shipping passing through the narrow Strait of Hormuz by launching attacks by fast speed boats manned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at the entrance in the Persian Gulf in an attempt to inflict damage on the global economy.
The Iranians are attempting to use the same tactic to disrupt global trade passing through the Suez Canal by encouraging their Houthi proxies to use similar techniques in the Red Sea.
Security officials have noted a significant increase in attacks being launched against shipping in the region by Houthi terrorists using fast speed boats, employing the same tactic the IRGC used to great effect in the Strait of Hormuz in the 1980s.
In addition, the Houthis have used Iranian-made missiles and drones to attack shipping, as well as launching attacks against Israel. The Houthis say they are primarily targeting shipping with links to Israel, although most of the attacks have focused on shipping heading for other destinations.
The Houthis' attacks follow calls by senior Iranian officials for members of Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" -- a motley collection of Islamist terror groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas -- to take pre-emptive action in response to Israel's military offensive in Gaza to destroy Hamas's terrorist infrastructure.
The surge in Houthi activity this month prompted the US and its allies to issue a strongly-worded statement condemning the attacks on shipping, warning that the Houthis will face the consequences of their action if they do not desist.
The statement issued by the White House, which was signed by a total of 12 countries, warned:
"Let our message now be clear: we call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews. The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy and free flow of commerce in the region's critical waterways".
Apart from the US, the declaration was signed by the UK, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
The US and its allies, including Britain and France, have already assembled a powerful naval armada in the region to tackle the Houthi threat. In one recent incident, the Houthis lost at least ten fighters after three of their vessels were repelled by US forces in the Red Sea.
Since November, the Houthis have attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea more than 20 times using missiles, drones and fast boats.
Despite the disruption the constant attacks are causing, with many major shipping companies now refusing to operate in the Red Sea area, the Biden administration remains hesitant about approving the decisive military action required to liquidate the Houthi threat.
As has been the case with Biden's equivocal response to the Ukraine crisis, where US support for Kyiv has been constrained by fears of provoking Moscow, the White House appears reluctant to authorise forceful military action against the Houthis that might prompt a confrontation with Iran.
The Biden administration needs to understand that, when it comes to dealing with autocratic states like Russia and Iran, brute force is the only language they understand, whereas the slightest hint of weakness will be gleefully exploited to their benefit.
It would be preferable to have Iran concerned about US action, whether military or addressing the regime's hold on power.
While the Pentagon is reported to have drawn up a number of options for strikes against the Yemen-based rebels, the White House has declined to give its approval.
US national security officials are now reported to be working with allies such as the UK to examine other options including covert operations, which would entail deploying special forces that could disable the engines of the Houthi fast boats, or explosives to sink them while they are in harbour.
There have already been reports in the UK media that special forces have been used to destroy Houthi vessels being used to attack global shipping.
Certainly, with the Houthis showing no sign of ending their attacks, and the disruption to global shipping increasing by the day, the Biden administration needs to demonstrate that it will not tolerate Iran's attempts to threaten the global economy.
Rather than worrying about the response US-led military action might provoke from Iran, the US and its allies need to demonstrate that they will decisively confront the terror tactics adopted by Iran and its proxies, and authorise the uncompromising military action that will end the Houthis' attacks on key shipping routes once and for all.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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Israel in the dock as Gaza genocide case begins
Chris Doyle/Arab News/January 08/2024
The term “genocide” has been widely debated regarding the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Those to have made this grave accusation have included prominent legal figures, genocide experts and UN officials. Few charges could be more serious.
The merits of the accusation will this week be tested at public hearings at the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the UN.
South Africa initiated proceedings against Israel on Dec. 29. It argues that there is an obligation on all states in Article 1 of the 1948 Genocide Convention “to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.” South Africa is seeking to fulfill this obligation. How many other states will back its case? Turkiye and Jordan have officially supported South Africa, as has the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
It is a damning 84-page application prepared by distinguished lawyers. Even if it turns out that it does not quite cross the court’s line for genocide, it is a savage indictment of Israeli actions in Gaza that should shame the world for its inaction. Israel, as is its wont, responded in fury, a spokesman referring to South Africa’s case as an “absurd blood libel.”
The threshold for the charge of genocide is high. It is a much tougher charge to make stick than war crimes, which are dealt with by the International Criminal Court. South Africa’s case is a savage indictment of Israeli actions in Gaza that should shame the world for its inaction
This is the initial stage. The court has responded rapidly because it has the power to order preliminary measures to stop or prevent a genocide taking place if it determines that this is “plausible.” This is a much lower threshold than will be adopted when the court makes its final determination on whether Israel has committed genocide — a process that typically takes about four years. In the case of Bosnia, the court took from 1993 to 2007, so it is understandable why it feels the need to make this initial finding.
Are there precedents? The case Gambia brought against Myanmar is one. In 2022, the court accepted that Gambia had standing and ordered Myanmar to prevent the commission of genocidal acts against the Rohingya. That decision was revolutionary. It meant that a state party to a treaty that protects common legal rights can enforce those rights even if it is not directly affected by the violation. In March 2022, the International Court of Justice ordered Russia to halt its offensive in Ukraine — an order that was supposed to be legally binding. Moscow ignored it. Both Israel and South Africa have ratified the Genocide Convention. There should not be any questions over jurisdiction, even though Tel Aviv may argue the point. One Israeli argument may be that the Palestinians in Gaza do not qualify as a national, ethnic, racial or religious group for the purposes of the convention. It cannot argue justification, as there is no legal, let alone moral, argument for genocide. All these arguments would be a slippery way to bypass the genocide charge — hardly an endorsement of Israeli actions.
Has South Africa presented a sound case? No application can be 100 percent watertight. The argument is that Israel is guilty by both intent and conduct. The issue of intent to commit genocide is typically a stumbling block. Those regimes that have done it in the past were rarely crazy enough to advertise their intent publicly. But South Africa argues that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention by failing to suppress “direct and public incitement to commit genocide.”
Israeli leaders, including the president, prime minister and defense minister, have been surprisingly bold in their genocidal statements, as I have covered before. Members of the Knesset routinely refer to the need for Gaza to be “wiped out,” “flattened,” “erased” and “crushed.” The court will not determine individual responsibility, but these figures were crucial in determining Israeli policy.
The application notes not just what Israel has done to Gaza since Oct. 7, but also its previous policies
As for Israel’s conduct, the South African charge sheet is detailed with 574 footnotes. The application notes not just what Israel has done to Gaza since Oct. 7, but also its previous policies, including the 16-year-old blockade of the Strip and the 56-year-old occupation that has left the Palestinian population extremely vulnerable. It presents a pattern of Israeli behavior geared toward rendering Gaza uninhabitable.
The submission also highlights how Israel has, since Oct.7, tried to deny the civilian population objects indispensable to their survival through a “total siege” and the targeting of key civilian infrastructure. It points to how Israel has destroyed in excess of 355,000 Palestinian homes. It cites the forced displacement of 85 percent of the population. The widespread Israeli attack on Gazan healthcare is another key element.
What happens if the court determines that there are “plausible grounds” that a genocide is in progress. It can order preventive measures that are, in theory, binding. South Africa proposes nine very specific actions, including the cessation of all Israeli military actions in Gaza.
Israel would ignore any such findings, but it may be rattled. Would it lead the Israeli public, let alone the political class, to take stock of what is happening in Gaza or, more accurately, what their military forces are doing?
The more serious impact may be among Israel’s allies. Those states that have been arming Israel or facilitating its arming will reject the charge that Tel Aviv is committing genocide, but will be shaken by any such finding. Leaders and officials could land up in legal difficulties on the grounds of complicity. This is why the US was quickly out of the blocks to condemn the document. A US spokesman described the charges as “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” Would states like the UK be content to continue to trade in arms with Israel?
This may just be the opening round in a long series of legal battles for Israel. The International Court of Justice may set the tone for others to follow. If it rejects the South African application, Israel will claim victory and act as the victim of a grand antisemitic conspiracy. If the court accepts the arguments, the International Criminal Court may feel under greater pressure to deliver its own verdicts on alleged war crimes perpetrated by both Israel and Hamas.
Many will feel that the whole international justice system is in the dock. Given what Israel has done, can these judicial organs do what the major international powers have failed to do for so long and hold Israel to account? It may be a long journey.
Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding in London. X: @Doylech

Economic, political factors driving increase in migration from Iran
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/January 08/2024
There are two different trends in Iran’s recent migration dynamics. Firstly, the country has experienced an accelerating trend of elite migration toward Western countries. According to official sources, Iranian migrants prefer countries such as the US, Australia, Canada, Germany and the UK. Secondly, there has been a new phenomenon since the end of the 2010s of poor Iranians, such as workers, migrating due to the deteriorating socioeconomic conditions and rise of political instability. This has led to the rise of new destinations for Iranian migrants, including the Gulf states of the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, as well as Turkiye. Official reports indicate an increase in the tendency of Iranian workers to migrate. Today, advertisements and calls to recruit Iranians to work in Iraq are an example of this new phenomenon, according to the conservative official newspaper Khorasan. Iran’s labor community is now considering the possibility of migrating to the city of Irbil in northern Iraq because the basic salary is higher than in Iran. Also, given the high wages offered in countries like Kuwait, there is a significant number of Iranian workers moving there. The wages in countries such as Turkiye, Iraq, Azerbaijan and the UAE are two to three times higher than those in Iran.
Consequently, the comparatively low compensation for labor in Iran appears to be a significant driver of Iranian workers leaving their homeland. According to an analysis by Khorasan, a worker in the UAE could receive a salary of $1,500 to $2,000 per month, while in Oman it is about $800 and in Turkiye it is between $600 and $800. Meanwhile, the salary of a worker in Iran is often less than $200 per month.
The fact that the desire to migrate is very high among the youth is of particular concern for the Iranian political establishment
Given these dire economic conditions, the rise in migration among the poorest segments of Iranian society could be even higher, given that there is a significant number of citizens who have refused to leave the country due to financial reasons, language barriers or family reasons. The fact that the desire to migrate is very high among the youth is of particular concern for the Iranian political establishment.
The reasons given by Iranian citizens to explain their wish to migrate include the absence of a meritocracy in the Iranian economic and political system, the lack of job opportunities in the Iranian market, poor working conditions and low salaries. Khorasan last month reported that 67 percent of university graduates were willing to emigrate. And Rasul Sadeghi, a member of the Elite Migration Working Group at the Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, underlined that: “In the Iranian year 2014-2015, the desire to migrate among the Iranian population over the age of 18 was 23 percent, but in the Iranian year 2021-2022 it reached 46 percent. That is, it doubled in seven years. This means that the economic and social structures of society have many problems.”
​Iran witnessed the world’s fastest growth in terms of migration rate between 2020 and 2021, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data. The number of Iranian migrants was 48,000 in 2020 and 115,000 in 2021, an increase of 141 percent. According to UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, the number of new asylum applications made globally by Iranians in 2022 rose 44 percent compared to the previous year.
The new Iranian migrants from the poorest segment of the population are now leaving their homeland in large numbers, often attempting perilous journeys to reach Western countries. From the start of 2018 until March 2023, migrants from Iran formed the largest group reaching the UK after crossing the English Channel from France in small boats operated by smugglers. Moreover, according to official Iranian statistics, more than 3,000 nurses and 10,000 physicians migrate annually, with an average of 16,000 students leaving Iran each year to pursue further education.
The Iran Migration Observatory considers that Iran is experiencing an ‘uncontrolled mass emigration’ phenomenon
The Tehran-based Nilgam Center, an agency providing services to Iranians seeking to emigrate, claims that, between 2010 and 2020, about 500,000 migrants left the country permanently. In April 2020, the Stanford Iran 2040 Project reported that the population of Iran-born emigrants increased from about half a million before the 1979 revolution to 3.1 million in 2019.
Overall, given the rise in migration among the lower social class, the Iran Migration Observatory considers that Iran is experiencing an “uncontrolled mass emigration” phenomenon. This new trend is a product of the deteriorating economic situation, as well as the suppression of dissent after every wave of protests inside Iran: the Green Movement of 2009, popular protests between 2017 and 2018, protests against the rise in oil prices in November 2019 and the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests that started in the fall of 2022 after the killing of Mahsa Amini.
This combination of economic and political factors is the main driver of the recent waves of migration from Iran. Today, the departing population is not only composed of students, athletes, artists, skilled workers and technicians, but also of workers and citizens from the villages of Iran.
To solve this problem, the Iranian authorities are trying to prevent the departure of skilled students in general and healthcare professionals in particular. For instance, the head of the Medical Council of Iran considers that healthcare professionals should not “be allowed to leave the country easily” to ensure that the healthcare system does not collapse.
Meanwhile, the representatives of the ideological aspects of the Iranian political system consider that skilled Iranian migrants are “traitors” or that the phenomenon is exaggerated by enemies of the state. According to Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, alarming reports of the mass emigration of doctors and nurses is part of the “psychological warfare” and “negative propaganda and lies” of Iran’s enemies. However, a recent report published by Iran Open Data stated that the number of doctors who leave Iran to work in more prosperous countries exceeds the number of new doctors trained in the country by 30 percent on an annual basis.
Iranian officials attribute the exodus to the low salaries of healthcare workers in Iran, but the political and geopolitical context is never mentioned. This political denial of a new and accelerating migration phenomenon in Iran is part of the authorities’ strategy to avoid reforming the political system at a time of internal challenges and popular discontent. This political strategy is based on the idea that reforms made from a position of weakness will provoke the beginning of the end of the Iranian political system. This strategy has become a tool of political survival, but the economic and social burdens are so high that a rising number of Iranians have been trying to migrate every year over the last decade.
*Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is the founder and president of the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah). X: @mohalsulami

International solidarity key to addressing Sudan refugee crisis
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/January 08/2024
The war in Sudan persists unabated and continues to inflict profound suffering on the populace. The country’s refugee crisis has emerged as a dire humanitarian challenge, casting a shadow of despair over the region and placing significant strain on neighboring countries. As thousands flee the violence and instability in Sudan, the international community must confront the urgency of this situation and devise comprehensive solutions to alleviate the burdens on host nations and, more importantly, provide hope and a future for the refugees.
Among the nations grappling with a substantial influx of Sudanese refugees is Chad, a country that is also struggling with its own challenges. It has seen a substantial increase in its refugee population and prominently stands out as a host country battling the complexities of supporting a large displaced population. The influx of refugees is putting a strain on the nation’s limited resources.
However, it is not alone in shouldering this burden, as other countries in the region, including South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic and Libya, have also become significant recipients of those fleeing the conflict in Sudan. The plight of Chad and other neighboring countries demonstrates the interconnectedness of this regional crisis, necessitating a comprehensive international response to alleviate the burdens these countries face.
These countries need support to tackle the repercussions they are facing as a result of hosting large numbers of Sudanese refugees. Behind the staggering statistics lies the human toll of the Sudan refugee crisis. Families are torn apart, many children do not have access to education and more and more people face the trauma of displacement. In addition, the absence of adequate healthcare and sanitation facilities exposes refugees to the risk of disease, compounding their already precarious existence.
It is also important to point out that the journeys undertaken by refugees to reach the relative safety of one of Sudan’s neighboring nations are often harrowing and fraught with difficulties. From traversing treacherous terrain to facing the constant threat of violence, those seeking refuge embark on a perilous odyssey, thus highlighting the desperate circumstances that force them to leave their homes in search of security and stability.
The burden should not fall solely on the shoulders of neighboring nations; instead, a global approach is imperative.
The shared experience of these refugees underscores the regional nature of the crisis. A collective and concerted international response is required to alleviate the strain on the host countries and also address the conflict, which has compelled such extensive displacement.
In the event that the Sudan conflict persists, countries like Chad and Egypt could endure heightened political and economic challenges. This is primarily because the ongoing influx of refugees has the potential to exert a substantial impact not only on host nations’ economies, but also on their social, political and environmental dynamics.
The implications of such a sustained crisis extend beyond the immediate economic strain, permeating various facets of the host countries’ functionality. For instance, the ramifications may include increased competition for limited resources, while social tensions may arise from cultural diversity and political pressures may be exacerbated by the demands of managing a large displaced population.
In addition, it is worth noting that the environmental landscape may also experience stress due to intensified resource consumption and altered demographic patterns associated with refugee settlements. As a result, addressing the Sudan conflict becomes not only a humanitarian imperative but also a strategic necessity in order to avert the potential destabilization of neighboring nations.
The scale of the Sudan refugee crisis demands a robust and coordinated international response. The burden should not fall solely on the shoulders of neighboring nations; instead, a global approach is imperative.
The international community must collaborate to provide financial assistance, medical aid and logistical support to alleviate the strain on host countries. Furthermore, diplomatic efforts should be intensified. Sustainable initiatives should be put forward to end the conflict, while political dialogue and international mediation are essential in order to curb and halt the violence that is driving Sudanese people from their homes.
The UN, regional organizations and influential nations must also unite to exert diplomatic pressure on all parties involved and facilitate a resolution.
It is crucial for the UN, working with the African Union, to play a pivotal role in aiding Sudanese refugees by ensuring access to essential services such as nutrition, primary healthcare, mental health support and child health services.
Equally crucial is the assistance extended to the host countries grappling with insufficient resources to effectively manage the surge of refugees. This multifaceted approach, encompassing both direct support for the displaced populations and bolstering the capacities of host nations, is indispensable in addressing the complex challenges arising from the Sudan refugee crisis.
In a nutshell, the Sudan refugee crisis is not an isolated issue; it is a test of our collective humanity and commitment to the principles of compassion and solidarity. As the world witnesses the suffering of millions, the need for immediate action becomes increasingly evident. The international community must rise to the occasion, providing both financial and diplomatic support to ease the burden on host nations. Only through a united effort can we hope to bring an end to the suffering of the Sudanese refugees.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. X: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Everybody loses in an impending regional conflagration
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/January 08, 2024
The situation on Lebanon’s southern border already feels like a hot war, with a rapid escalation in two-way missile barrages. These clashes have caused the deaths of dozens of Lebanese civilians and well over 140 Hezbollah personnel. Lebanese Army positions have been repeatedly hit.
About 75,000 people have been displaced, schools have been closed and much of the south increasingly resembles a closed military zone. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the latest exchanges were about “reinforcing the equilibrium of dissuasion,” but there can be no equilibrium in open conflict — only countless victims and escalatory cycles of vengeance.
More than at any previous juncture since this conflict erupted, Nasrallah’s latest sermon was defined by bellicose fighting talk. He bellowed about a “historic opportunity” to liberate lands occupied by Israel. “The war today,” he said, “is not only for Palestine but also for Lebanon and its south, in particular the region south of the Litani River.”
Some within Israel’s leadership have been advocating a decisive confrontation with Hezbollah since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 – to the horror of the US administration, which exerted all its diplomatic leverage to head off such an eventuality in the knowledge that America and its allies would be dragged into a widened conflict against Iran’s plethora of regionwide paramilitary assets. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Iraqi militants would be expected to join the battle, with Bashar Al-Assad having little say over a fierce new front opening up throughout Syria.
According to The Washington Post, the latest assessment by the US Defense Intelligence Agency is that Israel would struggle to prevail in a widened conflict with its forces heavily committed in Gaza. Israel’s latest partial withdrawal of forces from Gaza is to some degree calculated with the eventuality of a northern eruption in mind.
As tensions further soared in recent days, the US deployed a new fusillade of diplomatic activity, including another regional trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The State Department said it was “in no one’s interest — not Israel’s, not the region’s, not the world’s — for this conflict to spread beyond Gaza.” King Abdullah of Jordan warned Blinken of the “catastrophic repercussions” of the conflict.
Visiting Lebanon, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed the sentiment that “nobody will win from a regional conflict.” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian that “the risk of regional conflagration has never been so significant. Iran and its associates must immediately stop their destabilizing actions.”
Maybe Israel and its Western allies can ultimately degrade the capabilities of Hezbollah, Hamas and their Iranian overlords — but not necessarily before they destroy sizable parts of Israel and the wider region.
Last week’s killing of Saleh Al-Arouri, Hamas’s main emissary to Hezbollah and Iran, in an Israeli drone strike in Beirut may in retrospect be regarded as the moment when provocation passed the point of no return. Hezbollah described subsequent rocket barrages as an “initial response” to Arouri’s death, which Nasrallah said was “a major, dangerous crime about which we cannot be silent, adding that Lebanon in its entirety could fall victim to Israeli aggression if the assassination went unpunished.
Only a few days before, an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior Quds Force commander, and a US strike killed a commander of the Nujaba faction of the Hashd Al-Shaabi. While Nasrallah and his acolytes have a reputation for issuing empty threats in response to such assassinations, matters are rapidly accelerating beyond anybody’s ability to control them.
About 200,000 Israelis have already been moved out of sizable regions in the north and south. Israeli leaders are mooting the prospect of Israeli-controlled buffer zones, including a chunk of southern Lebanon and a several kilometer swaths of territory in Gaza, which itself is only a few kilometers wide. But these options, leaving aside that forced population transfers are illegal in international law, would be likely to worsen the conflict: Israel-occupied southern Lebanon from 1985 to 2000 was a casus belli for Hezbollah and a formative phase in giving it asymmetrical battle experience — not to mention an immense symbolic victory when Israel was eventually compelled to leave with a bloody nose.
Lebanon’s parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri has emphasized the importance of implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which commits both sides to a UN-monitored buffer zone and requires Hezbollah to withdraw beyond the Litani River. Nasrallah in his latest speech hinted that after the cessation of hostilities he could be open to border demarcation negotiations. This appears to be a focus of behind-the-scenes brinkmanship by Western interlocutors.
There is a comparable inflammatory situation of reciprocal retaliatory skirmishes between the US and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. Iraqi militias have already staged about 140 attacks against US targets since Oct. 7, drawing increasingly aggressive American retaliation. Western leaders are similarly bemused about how to halt Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping without further raising the temperature. More than 20 states have joined a coalition which, according to the Pentagon, will be a “highway patrol” assisting commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
As the missiles fly, hopes are fading that we can weather this conflict without a major regional conflagration, which would be a catastrophic failure of global diplomacy and mediocre leadership in allowing developments to advance to such a dire stage. But Nasrallah, Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden and Ali Khamenei pay scant attention to the apocalyptic consequences of this scenario, despite long-visible glaring strategic threats posed by vast transnational paramilitary hordes and the stalled Middle East peace process.
We should take Netanyahu literally when he threatens to turn Lebanon and other states into Gaza, and do the math concerning the astronomic resulting death toll. The Middle East Institute estimated that Lebanese casualties could be in the range of 300,000 to 500,000, along with a massive evacuation of northern Israel.Maybe Israel and its Western allies can ultimately degrade the capabilities of Hezbollah, Hamas and their Iranian overlords — but not necessarily before they destroy sizable parts of Israel and the wider region. Pity the millions of lives set to be torn apart by these oncoming horrors.
• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

A Gory Christmas’: Christians Slaughtered in the Nigerian Genocide
Raymond Ibrahim/January 08, 2024
The bloodstained floor of St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo State, Nigeria. On June 5, 2022, Islamic terrorists murdered more than 50 Christians who were peacefully worshipping there.
Yesterday, January 7, 2024, marked the Eastern Orthodox Christmas, according to the Julian calendar. Less than two weeks earlier, on December 25, 2023, the more familiar Catholic and Protestant Christmas was celebrated in the West. This winter, however, festivities were cancelled. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was a ghost town . “This year,” said Brother John Vinh, a Franciscan monk, “without the Christmas tree and without lights, there’s just darkness.” Alas, for many other Christians, Christmas was also just darkness.
While around much of the world, the holiday was being celebrated with peace and joy, in Nigeria, starting on Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day, Muslims massacred nearly 200 Christians. Well-armed Muslim Fulani tribesmen hacked, stabbed, riddled with bullets, and burned alive their Christian victims, many of whom were in the process of celebrating Christmas.
According to one report,
At least 25 communities across three Local Government Areas [in Plateau State] were targeted. Survivors recounted militia men attacking in large numbers, indiscriminately killing and destroying homes, vehicles, farmlands and other properties. About 37 individuals, primarily women, children and the disabled, were burned to death in their homes. Eight churches and parsonages were also destroyed…
The number of slain is expected to rise. “Yes, my village was attacked on Christmas Eve, and other villages close to my community,” confirmed Timothy, a local, during an interview. “More dead bodies were found in the bush today… Many houses were burnt including my church. I can’t say how many people were killed but we found more dead bodies today and we are looking for missing ones.
Over 300 Christians were also seriously injured, 29,350 people displaced, and countless homes and churches—in just one village, 221 homes—torched during the jihadist raids.
Four family members of Naomi, another local, were murdered, and she displaced: “My house was burnt,” she said, “and I mourned on Christmas day.”
Several Christian leaders were also killed, including one pastor, his wife, and five children, said Dawzino Mallau, another local: “These terrorists who attacked these Christian communities were in the hundreds,” he added, “and they carried out the attacks as the hapless Christians were preparing for Christmas programs lined up by their pastors.”
Underscoring the scale of the attack, photos showed victims being buried in mass graves.
“This indeed has been a gory Christmas for us,” Plateau governor Caleb Mutfwang said in a statement that characterized the attacks as “well-coordinated” and carried out with “heavy weapons.”
Another report helps place this massacre in context:
Most of the Christians killed were women, children and the elderly unable to escape.…. Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in the Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam… Nigeria led the world in Christians killed for their faith in 2022, with 5,014, according to Open Doors’ 2023 World Watch List (WWL) report. It also led the world in Christians abducted (4,726), sexually assaulted or harassed, forcibly married or physically or mentally abused, and it had the most homes and businesses attacked for faith-based reasons. As in the previous year, Nigeria had the second most church attacks and internally displaced people.
Due to its “sensationalist” nature—nearly 200 Christians killed, and during Christmas time no less—this attack received a fair bit of reporting on larger “alt-right” and conservative news sites. In reality, however, no aspect of these attacks—neither the amount of Christians massacred, nor the time of year they were massacred in—is unique or “new” to Nigeria.
As elsewhere, Islamic terrorists in Nigeria regularly target Christians during their holy seasons. Indeed, nearly 13 years ago, during Christmas of 2011, the Gatestone Institute reported that
Several churches in northern Nigeria were bombed December 25 [2011], in what has been described as ‘Nigeria’s blackest Christmas ever.’ The attacks, perpetrated by the Muslim militant group Boko Haram, killed at least 39 people, ‘the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church [in Madalla near the capital of Abuja] after celebrating Christmas Mass as blood pooled in dust from a massive explosion.’ Charred bodies and dismembered limbs lay scattered around the destroyed church.
In fact, there have been no shortage of attacks on Christians during Christmas and other holy seasons in Nigeria. A few examples from before and after 2011’s supposedly “blackest Christmas ever” follow:
Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2010: Muslims torched and bombed several churches, leaving at least 38 Christians dead and 74 in critical condition.
Easter Sunday, Apr. 8, 2012: During communion, at least 50 Christians were blown to bits after explosives went off near the Assemblies of God’s Church during Easter Sunday services in a predominantly Muslim region.
Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2012: In two separate attacks, Islamic gunmen shot and killed 12 Christian worshippers who had gathered for Christmas Eve church services, including a pastor.
Easter week, 2013: Muslim herdsmen launched a series of raids, killing at least 80 Christians—mostly children and the elderly; additionally, over 200 Christian homes were destroyed, eight churches burned, and 4,500 Christians displaced.
Easter Sunday, Apr. 20, 2014: A packed church was set ablaze, leaving over 150 dead.
Christmas Day, 25, 2015: The Islamic group Boko Haram slaughtered 16 Christians, including children.
Pentecost Sunday, June 5, 2022: Terrorists stormed a Catholic church and massacred at least 50 Christians . Videos, according to one report, “showed church worshippers lying in pools of blood while people around them wailed.”
The above is just a miniscule sampling of attacks on Christians that were intentionally timed to coincide with their holy days. In reality, the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria is a daily affair—indeed, as Open Doors observed nearly two years ago, “every two hours, a Christian is killed for their faith” in Nigeria.
Muslims are openly committing genocide against Christians in Nigeria. This has been confirmed by several international observers. According to one report, between just 2009 and Apr. 10, 2023, 52,250 Christians “have been butchered or hacked to death” in Nigeria. Since then, that number has continued to grow (not only due to the 200 slain on Christmas, but the many others who were slaughtered since Apr. 10, 2023, as documented in the monthly “Persecution of Christians report”). Also since 2009, 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools were attacked, many “destroyed in part or in whole including being razed or burned down.”
In the meantime, the “mainstream” media and politicians have done everything possible to conceal this genocide, presenting it only as territorial clashes between herdsmen and farmers.
For example, in its report on last Christmas’s slaughter of nearly 200 Christians, the AP fails to mention that the massacres occurred during Christmas, just as it fails to mention the identities of the attackers (Muslims) and their victims (Christians). Rather, it presents the conflict, as many talking heads increasingly do, as the regrettable byproduct of climate change, which is forcing herdsmen (Muslims) to encroach on the lands of farmers (Christians).
Similarly, when reporting on the Pentecost Sunday church bombing of 2022, which left 50 Christian worshippers dead, the words “Muslim,” “Islam,” or even “Islamist” never appeared in the AP report. Rather, readers were told that “It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church.” To maintain this ambiguity, the AP also failed to point out that Islamic terrorists have routinely stormed churches and slaughtered thousands of Christians “for sport” over the years in Nigeria — a fact that just might have offered a hint as to “who was behind the attack.” But dissembling over what is happening to Nigeria’s Christians is an old “mainstream media” tactic (as discussed in this 2011 article).
One need only consider the words of Johnnie Carson, Obama’s then- Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, speaking after Muslim terrorists slaughtered 50 Christian church worshippers on Easter Sunday, 2012: “I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence [in Nigeria].” Instead, “inequality” and “poverty”—to quote former President William Jefferson Clinton—are “what’s fueling all this stuff” (“this stuff” being the massacre of Christians at the hands of Muslims).
But as a Nigerian nun, Sister Monica Chikwe, once observed,
It’s tough to tell Nigerian Christians this isn’t a religious conflict since what they see are Fulani fighters clad entirely in black, chanting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and screaming ‘Death to Christians.’
Or as the Christian Association of Nigeria once rhetorically asked,
How can it be a [secular or economic] clash when one group [Muslims] is persistently attacking, killing, maiming, destroying, and the other group [Christians] is persistently being killed, maimed and their places of worship destroyed?
In 2018, the National Christian Elders Forum of Nigeria succinctly summarized the ultimate source behind the genocide of Christians in Nigeria:
JIHAD has been launched in Nigeria by the Islamists of northern Nigeria led by the Fulani ethnic group. This Jihad is based on the Doctrine of Hate taught in Mosques and Islamic Madrasas in northern Nigeria as well as the supremacist ideology of the Fulani. Using both conventional (violent) Jihad, and stealth (civilization) Jihad, the Islamists of northern Nigeria seem determined to turn Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate and replace Liberal Democracy with Sharia as the National Ideology. … We want a Nigeria, where citizens are treated equally before the law at all levels….
In the midst of the jihadist carnage of Christians has been the Biden administration’s bizarre response. In 2020, Trump placed Nigeria on the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern—that is, nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom. Under Biden, however, the State Department removed Nigeria—this nation where one Christian is butchered every two hours—from the list.
Many observers responded by slamming the Biden State Department for this inexplicable move. As Sean Nelson, Legal Counsel for Global Religious Freedom for ADF International, noted:
Outcry over the State Department’s removal of Country of Particular Concern status for Nigeria’s religious freedom violations is entirely warranted. No explanations have been given that could justify this decision. If anything, the situation in Nigeria has grown worse over the last year. Thousands of Christians, as well as Muslims who oppose the goals of terrorist and militia groups, are targeted, killed, and kidnapped, and the government is simply unwilling to stop these atrocities. … Removing Country of Particular Concern status for Nigeria will only embolden the increasingly authoritarian government there.
Incidentally and to his credit, along with placing Nigeria on the list, Trump, with characteristic bluntness, one asked the then Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, “Why are you killing Christians?”
At any rate, such is the current state of affairs: a jihad of genocidal proportions has for some 15 years been waged on the Christian population of Nigeria—even as American media and government present Nigeria’s problems in purely economic terms that defy reality.
Put differently, for mainstream media and politicians, black lives—well over 50,000 and counting—do not matter. At least not when those lives are Christian and being slaughtered by Muslims.
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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