English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For December 13/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the
lccc Site
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2025/english.december13.25.htm
News Bulletin Achieves
Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Click On
The Below Link To Join Elias Bejjaninews whatsapp group
https://chat.whatsapp.com/FPF0N7lE5S484LNaSm0MjW
اضغط
على الرابط في
أعلى للإنضمام
لكروب
Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group
Elias Bejjani/Click
on the below link to subscribe to my youtube channel
الياس
بجاني/اضغط
على الرابط في
أسفل للإشتراك في
موقعي ع اليوتيوب
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOOSioLh1GE3C1hp63Camw
Bible Quotations For today
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
shall be saved
Letter to the Romans 10/01-13/:”Brothers and sisters, my heart’s
desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I can testify that
they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. For, being ignorant of the
righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have
not submitted to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law so that
there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Moses writes concerning
the righteousness that comes from the law, that ‘the person who does these
things will live by them.’ But the righteousness that comes from faith says, ‘Do
not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” ’ (that is, to bring
Christ down) ‘or “Who will descend into the abyss?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ
up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, on your lips and
in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you
confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and
so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture
says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no
distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous
to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall
be saved.’”
Titles For The
Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on
December 12-13/2025
Text & video/A/E/The Dresses of the Wives of Our Political Parties’ Owners,
Officials, and Rulers: A Thousand Mercies and Blessings upon Marie Antoinette
and the Biscuits/Elias Bejjani/December 09/2025
The Mossad Files/Video-Link/How Mossad hunted down the ghost banker who financed
Hezbollah
Mossad Vault Youtube Platform/How Mossad Sent a Woman Spy into a Beirut
Nightclub to Hunt a PLO Killer
Video Link – Podcast Interview with the Heroic Mrs. Antoinette Chahine From MTV
Youtube Platform.
Video link for a commentary by journalist Ali Hamadeh from Annahar newspaper
Youtube Platform
A highly important interview video link from “Sawt Lebnen,” with Pere Toni
Khadra
Report: Trump convinced of Aoun and Salam's conduct, believes peace deal more
important than disarmament
Trump says some countries 'volunteering' to 'take care of Hezbollah'
Report: Israel to wage large-scale offensive if Hezbollah not disarmed
Series of Israeli strikes hit South Lebanon and West Bekaa
Israel strikes south Lebanon in latest attacks despite ceasefire
Barrack prompts anger in Beirut as he suggests ‘bringing Lebanon and Syria
closer’
Rajji says Lebanon received warnings of major Israeli offensive
Iran FM tells Rajji brotherly countries don't need neutral place to meet
Hezbollah MPs meet Salam to discuss reconstruction and Israeli attacks
Aoun: Captives' return a priority in negotiations
Berri says no negotiations unless Israel withdraws, stops attacks
Jumblat says Iran cannot use Lebanon, Shiites to negotiate with US
US lawmakers press Israel to probe strike on reporters in Lebanon
Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah a prelude to next round against Iran/Elfadil
Ibrahim/The Arab Weekly/December 12/2025
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous
Reports And News published
on
December 12-13/2025
A Matter Concerning the Future of Religious Freedom in Canada/From: The Hon.
Pierre Poilievre, P.C., M.P.
US aims for international Gaza force deployment early next year, say US
officials
UN agency warns displaced Gazans facing floods as Israel blocks emergency
supplies
Israeli settlements in West Bank growing at highest level since 2017: UN report
Gaza civil defense says 16 dead as heavy rains batter territory
US officials say Gaza stabilization force will not fight Hamas
Netanyahu to meet President Trump on December 29 amid muted tensions over Gaza,
West Bank
Hamas disarmament, role of international force major sticking points in second
phase of US plan for Gaza
Iran seizes foreign tanker carrying 6 million liters of ‘smuggled diesel’ in
Gulf of Oman
US plan sees Ukraine joining EU in 2027: Official
Trump 'frustrated' with Kyiv, Moscow over talks on war
Russia attacks two Ukrainian ports, damaging three Turkish-owned vessels
Ukraine, US, Europe still seeking common ground in peace talks, French official
says
Trump says US willing to help with Ukraine’s security in peace deal with Russia
Turkey says no change in Russian S-400s amid US talks on F-35s
Joint Saudi-Emirate delegation in Aden for talks after STC takeover
UK king shares ‘good news’ that cancer treatment will be reduced in 2026
Syria welcomes US House vote to end ‘Caesar Act’ sanctions
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published
on
December 12-13/2025
Chat Control: The EU's Plan to Read Your Messages — All of Them/Drieu
Godefridi/Gatestone Institute/December 12/2025
Israel awaits return of last hostage, next phase of Gaza ceasefire under
discussion/Seth J. Frantzman/FDD's Long War Journal/December 12/2025
US deploys carrier, issues airspace warning, seizes oil tanker in latest
Caribbean escalations/Samuel Ben-Ur/FDD's Long War Journal/December 12/2025
From ‘Victory Only’ to Checkmate: Sudan’s Islamists Face Global Rejection
/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/FDD-Insight/December 12/2025
A Free Venezuela Elevates U.S. Energy Security/Saeed Ghasseminejad/Real Clear
World/December 12/2025
Psychological wounds of the Syrian people/Mamdouh AlMuhaini/English.Alarabiya/12
December/2025
Selected Face Book & X tweets for /December 12, 2025
The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on
December 12-13/2025
Text &
video/A/E/The Dresses of the Wives of Our Political Parties’ Owners, Officials,
and Rulers: A Thousand Mercies and Blessings upon Marie Antoinette and the
Biscuits
Elias Bejjani/December 09/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/12/149240/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj1nNxZX044
Anyone observing from outside
Lebanon the debauchery in the lifestyle of the Rulers of the Nation of the
Cedars, the owners of the so-called Political Parties’ companies, the
extravagance of many of the Clergy, and all those surrounding them—their wives,
relatives, consultants, sycophants, flocks, and idol worshippers—will, for a
million certainties, curse and disbelieve the hour they all reached positions of
responsibility.
Meanwhile, if you want to know people’s true mettle, the depth of their
humanity, their values, and their morals, give them money, power, and abundance…
either they walk through the Wide Gates and cling to their uncle Lucifer, the
Head of the Devils, or they walk through the Narrow Gates, extend their hands to
the people, and dedicate their lives to serving them.
And it is in this context—the context of the Wide and Narrow Gates—the choice
between good and evil—let us remember some of the wise proverbs of our villages:
“Woe to you from a poor man who gets rich and has no faith… he starts to rage
and cannot be calmed.”
“Woe to a people whose rulers have sold their conscience, are wicked and
shameless… and whose wives—a thousand mercies on Marie Antoinette of the
biscuits—live in total alienation from their people and their suffering.”
“Tell me what your wife wears, O owner of the Political Party, the ruler, and
the cleric, so I can tell you who you are, and if we can trust you and hand over
our lives and the country to you.”
“Show me who you have gathered around you, O ruler, official, cleric, and owner
of the Political Party, so I may know if your mettle is good or rotten.”
Today in Lebanon, the holy land of holiness and the saints, there is something
fundamentally wrong with everything connected to the officials, the rulers, the
owners of the Political Parties, and many of the people of robes and caps
(Clergy).
Lebanon’s current status today greatly resembles the miserable and evil status
of Sodom and Gomorrah, the days of Noah and the Flood, and the time of Nimrod.
The question, which definitely has no human answer, is: Has the Almighty God’s
wrath, directed at Lebanon and the officials responsible for its terrible state,
reached the level of ultimate punishment and retribution?
In the days of Noah, He punished them with the Flood, and in the time of Sodom
and Gomorrah, He burned them, and with Nimrod, He struck them with the confusion
of Babel.
So, how will His retribution and punishment be for us in Lebanon?
The Mossad
Files/Video-Link/How Mossad hunted down the ghost banker who financed Hezbollah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbnygEkL_z0
At 36,000 feet inside an Airbus A320 bound for Tel Aviv, a man in seat 14A
begins to fade—unaware his fate was sealed weeks earlier in a windowless room by
people he would never meet. Karim Youssef Fadel, a Lebanese financial consultant
living in Geneva, looked like just another executive in transit. But behind the
scenes, intelligence files painted him as something far more dangerous: a silent
architect of money flows that could keep a war alive.
Dec 12, 2025
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction created solely for entertainment and storytelling
purposes. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, or real events is purely coincidental. While
this story draws from information found in websites, newspapers, and books, it
deals with secret operations — therefore, no official confirmation exists.
All content should be understood as a fictional narrative inspired by
unverified accounts. Mossad, Israel, espionage, covert operation, targeted
killing, shadow war, Hezbollah, intelligence
Mossad Vault Youtube Platform/How Mossad Sent a Woman Spy
into a Beirut Nightclub to Hunt a PLO Killer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh9JX40IK9o
Dec 10, 2025
A woman in a black dress sits alone at a Beirut nightclub bar in 1979. Three
tables away, a man known as "The Pharmacist"—a Palestinian operative who has
killed seven Israeli civilians and three Mossad agents using poisons that mimic
natural death. What he doesn't know is that the sophisticated socialite watching
him is Yael Shimoni, an Israeli intelligence officer with a mission that will
require her to weaponize intimacy itself. This film reconstructs Operation
Nightingale—the transformation of an Israeli operative into a Lebanese
socialite, the psychological tradecraft that exploited a target's narcissism,
and the seduction operation that brought Yael close enough to deliver death
through invisible contact poison. We examine how Mossad constructed an entire
false life to create a cover identity so deep that even Lebanese intelligence
investigations failed to penetrate it. We trace Ali Hassan Mahmoud's history as
an assassin who preferred subtlety: poisonings that looked like natural illness,
induced heart attacks, deaths that mimicked strokes. His operational security
had defeated multiple Mossad attempts. What succeeded was a woman willing to
simulate love for a man she intended to kill. But this operation raises
questions intelligence agencies rarely acknowledge. What are the ethical
boundaries of using intimacy as weapon? We explore the psychological costs paid
by operatives who must compartmentalize so completely that the line between real
and performed self dissolves—and the moral complexity of operations that succeed
by exploiting human vulnerability.
We reconstruct the final night: the invisible application of dimethylmercury to
Mahmoud's possessions, the hours they spent together while poison transferred
through his skin, and his death twenty-six hours later from causes Lebanese
doctors could not explain. The assassination was perfect—no evidence, no
suspects, just mysterious death after an evening with his lover. If this
investigation made you see intelligence operations differently, hit Like and
Subscribe. Drop your thoughts: was this operation justified necessity—or an
ethical violation no state should commit?
Video Link – Podcast Interview with the Heroic Mrs.
Antoinette Chahine From MTV Youtube Platform.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/12/150150/
An interview in which she recounts her arrest, the
torture she endured, and the injustice she suffered during her imprisonment.
“This is how they tortured and beat me… and the target was Geagea.”
December 12/2025
Elias Bejjani
Despite all the physical torture you endured at the hands of oppressors and
evildoers, you—faithfully and spiritually—shared in Christ’s suffering. This is
a grace that our Lord Jesus grants only to very few. Here, we remember Saint
Rafqa, who asked Christ to let her share in His pain. You, Antoinette, is a role
model and an example of unshakable faith—faith in the Crucified One.
Video link for a commentary
by journalist Ali Hamadeh from Annahar newspaper Youtube Platform, addressing
the heresy of Berri’s proposal to implement the armistice agreement, the
inevitability of an Israeli war on the terrorist Hezbollah, and its uprooting
from all of Lebanon.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/12/150135/
December 12/2025
Israel has begun convincing America of the Lebanese state’s incapacity
Elias Bejjani
House Speaker Nabih Berri is a heretic, a ridiculous and hypocritical charlatan,
and a figure a million times more dangerous than Hezbollah itself. His
fraudulent proposal today—calling for an immediate return to the 1949 Armistice
Agreement—is nothing but a blatant deception, deliberately ignoring the reality
of Hezbollah’s occupation of Lebanon and attempting to circumvent binding
international resolutions.
The fact remains: there will be no resurrection for Lebanon as long as
charlatans like this corrupt Berri control the state’s decision-making, its
rulers, and the fate of its people. In this context, Israel’s military role has
become an urgent Lebanese necessity, because no other force is currently capable
of ending Hezbollah militarily. Indeed, the military elimination of Hezbollah is
a Lebanese and Arab interest before it is an Israeli one.
The time has come to uproot the cancer of Iran and its Mullah regime from
Lebanon, to end Berri’s destructive role, and to purge all state institutions of
those who share his demonic caliber.
A highly important
interview video link from “Sawt Lebnen,” with Pere Toni Khadra
Interview exposing the funeral of credibility
and the destruction of standards at the Lebanese University, alongside the
systematic marginalization and exclusion of Christians from it. It is also a
message from Abour to His Holiness the Pope, revealing the shortcomings of the
Church, the marginality of Christian parties, and the corruption of those
entrusted with the presence and destiny of Christians in Lebanon.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/12/150144/
**A highly important interview video link from “Sawt Lebnen,” with Pere Toni
Khadra, exposing the funeral of credibility and the destruction of standards at
the Lebanese University, alongside the systematic marginalization and exclusion
of Christians from it. It is also a message from Abour to His Holiness the Pope,
revealing the shortcomings of the Church, the marginality of Christian parties,
and the corruption of those entrusted with the presence and destiny of
Christians in Lebanon.
Father Tony Khadra to Sawt Lebnen: We hope that Pope Leo will raise the staff of
dialogue and internal equality, far from the intimidation of weapons.
December 12/2025
Elias Bejjani: My prayers for Father Khadra… This exceptional monk, the crying
voice in the wilderness of Lebanon, has dedicated his life to defending the
active Christian presence in the country. A distinguished monk in a time when
faith has diminished, submissiveness has spread, and the hearts and minds of
many among those wearing cassocks and miters have grown empty… Father Khadra is
a spiritual leaven who tirelessly strives—through the Word, which is God
incarnate—to bear witness to the truth and defend it. Lebanon, the land of
holiness and saints, is in dire need of all those who share the same spiritual
fabric and purity of Father Khadra. May God protect him.
Report: Trump convinced of
Aoun and Salam's conduct, believes peace deal more important than disarmament
Naharnet/December 12/2025
U.S. President Donald Trump is still convinced of the actions being taken by
President Joseph Aoun and of what the government of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam
has achieved and intends to achieve, according to “exclusive information”
obtained by the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper. Trump has informed U.S. envoy Morgan
Ortagus of “the necessity of urging President Aoun and PM Salam to complete what
they have started. He also informed the new U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Michel
Issa, of the need to convince Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri of the necessity
of securing the interests of the Shiite community in Lebanon in the
post-Hezbollah phase,” the daily said. The report also said that Washington is
not enthusiastic about removing Hezbollah's weapons as an initial step.
“Instead, it believes the priority is for signing a peace agreement between
Lebanon and Israel, which would practically end the impact, role and narrative
of retaining Hezbollah’s weapons,” the report added. “From this standpoint,
Washington is pressuring the Lebanese political decision to move towards a peace
agreement under its sponsorship and guarantee, while personally assuring
President Joseph Aoun that peace means an Israeli withdrawal from occupied
Lebanese territory and the empowerment of the Lebanese Army,” Nidaa al-Watan
said. The newspaper also learned from U.S. sources following the meeting between
Berri and Issa that the parliament speaker “does not object to reaching a peace
agreement” with Israel. Berri, however, is “not reassured by the American
promises,” the sources said. Berri instead stipulated
to Issa that Israel publicly declare a halt to the attacks against Lebanon as
“the sole gateway to expanding the negotiating delegation and including Shiite,
Sunni and Druze figures alongside Ambassador Simon Karam to confer a national
consensus on the peace steps with Israel.”However, according to the sources,
Issa has not yet received clear Israeli answers regarding Berri's condition.
According to the sources, the drums of war went silent after the
Americans “sensed a serious change in Berri's position, especially after he was
able to obtain Iranian permission to distance himself from Hezbollah to prevent
jeopardizing the interests of the Shiite community in Lebanon and to make room
for advanced negotiations in the Sultanate of Oman between the Americans and the
Iranians.”
Trump says some countries 'volunteering' to 'take care of
Hezbollah'
Naharnet/December 12/2025
U.S. President Donald Trump has said that there are “countries that wanna come
in and take care of Hezbollah in Lebanon.”“And I say that right now you don’t
have to do that -- you may have to do that. We have countries that are
volunteering to literally come in and take care of the whole thing. We have
great peace in the Middle East, it’s never happened before, and I think it’s
very strong actually,” Trump told reporters at the White House. Trump had said
in late November that he would invite President Joseph Aoun to the White House.
"I think that Hezbollah has been a problem in Lebanon -- big problem. We're
working with Lebanon, we're working with everybody in the Middle East ... We
wanna see peace in the Middle East ... and I think you're gonna see some very
positive things happening," said Trump in response to a Lebanese reporter's
question. "Sure. I would do that, absolutely," he answered on the possibility of
inviting Aoun to the White House.
Report: Israel to wage
large-scale offensive if Hezbollah not disarmed
Naharnet/December 12/2025
The state-run Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation reported late Thursday
that the Israeli army finalized a plan in recent weeks to launch a large-scale
offensive against Hezbollah positions should the Lebanese government and army
fail to dismantle the party's weapons before the end of 2025. It quoted unnamed
Israeli security sources as saying that the plan was prepared by the Israeli
army command, the Northern Command and the Intelligence and Operations
directorates, as part of preparation for the potential collapse of political
efforts led by Beirut to disarm Hezbollah. The same sources added that the air
force conducted extensive exercises in recent days with the aim of raising
readiness for the potential execution of the military operation in south
Lebanon. The corporation quoted a senior security official as saying that Israel
has informed the United States that it would act on its own to disarm Hezbollah
if it was not done effectively, even if that led to days of fighting or renewed
confrontations on the northern front. The official added that Washington
conveyed the Israeli warning to the Lebanese side. Lebanon, however, clarified
that the process is complex and requires additional time to be achieved. This is
the second time in two weeks that Israeli reports have mentioned a plan to
expand operations against Hezbollah. On November 30, Israel’s Channel 13
reported that the Israeli army had presented an operational plan to expand
attacks against Hezbollah during a special meeting held with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a number of ministers and security officials.
Series of Israeli strikes hit South Lebanon and West Bekaa
Agence France Presse/December 12/2025
Israeli warplanes carried out Friday a series of strikes on several regions in
south Lebanon and West Bekaa, despite Lebanon recently moving to negotiations
with Israel. The strikes targeted several regions including Ansar-Zrariyyeh,
Iqlim al-Tuffah and al-Rihan heights in south Lebanon, and Zillaya in West
Bekaa. The National News Agency (NNA) reported strikes in around a dozen
locations, including up to around 30 kilometers from the Israeli border, citing
at times "heavy raids". The Israeli military said in a statement that its forces
"struck a training and qualification compound" used by Hezbollah's elite Radwan
Force where operatives "underwent shooting exercises and additional training on
the use of various types of weapons".The army also "struck additional Hezbollah
military infrastructure in several areas in southern Lebanon", it said. Despite
a ceasefire reached last year and the inclusion of two Lebanese and Israeli
civilians to lead negotiations in the ceasefire committee, Israel has kept up
its airstrikes on Lebanon and officials have said that the war on Hezbollah and
the negotiations with the Lebanese government are two separate things. Lebanon
however says the goal of the negotiations is to end the attacks and the
occupation of five hills in south Lebanon. According to the ceasefire, Hezbollah
was required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers
from the border with Israel, and have its military infrastructure there
dismantled. Under a government-approved plan, the army is to dismantle
Hezbollah's military infrastructure south of the Litani by the end of the year,
before tackling the rest of the country. The sites struck on Friday were
generally north of the river. Earlier this week, Israel launched a series of
strikes on southern Lebanon, also saying it hit a Hezbollah training center and
other targets.
Israel strikes south Lebanon in latest attacks despite ceasefire
AFP/12 December/2025
A series of Israeli strikes hit south and east Lebanon on Friday, state media
reported, as Israel’s army said it was targeting Hezbollah sites, the latest
such raids despite a year-old ceasefire. Lebanon’s state-run National News
Agency (NNA) reported strikes in around a dozen locations, including up to
around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, citing at times “heavy
raids.”Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon despite a November 2024 ceasefire
that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities with the Iran-backed
militant group Hezbollah and has also kept troops in five areas it deems
strategic. The Israeli military said in a statement that its forces “struck a
training and qualification compound” used by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force
where operatives “underwent shooting exercises and additional training on the
use of various types of weapons.”The army also “struck additional Hezbollah
military infrastructure in several areas in southern Lebanon,” it said.
According to the ceasefire, Hezbollah was required to pull its forces north of
the Litani River, some 30 kilometers from the border with Israel, and have its
military infrastructure there dismantled. Under a government-approved plan,
Lebanon’s army is to dismantle Hezbollah’s military infrastructure south of the
Litani by the end of the year, before tackling the rest of the country. The
sites struck on Friday were generally north of the river. Earlier this week,
Israel launched a series of strikes on southern Lebanon, also saying it hit a
Hezbollah training center and other targets.
Barrack prompts anger in Beirut as he suggests ‘bringing
Lebanon and Syria closer’
The Arab Weekly/December 12/2025
No stranger to controversial remarks, Barrack said last September, “there is no
Middle East. There are only tribes”.Recent remarks by US envoy Tom Barrack where
for many Lebanese he seemed to advocate the integration of Lebanon into Syria
prompted an angry reaction from Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a close
ally of Hezbollah. Speaking in Doha a few days ago, Barrack suggested to “bring
Lebanon and Syria closer, align these two ancient and beautiful
civilisations.”“It is totally inconceivable to talk to the Lebanese in this way,
especially by diplomats,” Berri told to the Lebanese Press Syndicate on
Thursday. The Lebanese parliament’s speaker further described the comments as a
“major mistake that is absolutely unacceptable.”Last July, Barrack had warned
that “if Lebanon does not move, it will return to Bilad al-Sham,” using the name
of greater Syria before the French mandate.The relations between the two states
have been consistently fraught with the Lebanese resenting Syrian designs over
their country. The Assad regime occupied Lebanon from
1976 to 2005.
A few weeks ago, Barrack called Lebanon “a failed state” in remarks reflecting
US frustration with what it sees as with Beirut’s “paralysed
government”.Lebanon, he pointed out, is the only state in the region “not
jumping in line” with the new Middle East realignments. “The state is
Hezbollah,” he said.
“It is really up to the Lebanese. America is not going to get deeper involved in
the situation with a foreign terrorist organisation and a failed state dictating
the pace and asking for more resources and more money and more help,” he said.
Barrack also said Washington would support its ally “if Israel becomes more
aggressive toward Lebanon.”The US envoy has been more positive towards Syria and
expressed confidence in a security agreement being struck between Israel and the
Ahmed al-Sharaa regime in Damascus. Barrack said the United States could
“volunteer to be the peacekeeping force” to support the arrangement. “I’m
convinced that the Syrian regime knows that their future is based upon finding a
security and border agreement with Israel,” he asserted during remarks in
Washington. “My belief is we’ll get there because it helps Israel. Israel right
now, the softest play is Syria. Syria’s incentive is non-aggressive to Israel.
They have no intent in being an adversary to Israel,” he added. No stranger to
controversial remarks, Barrack said last September, “there is no Middle East.
There are only tribes.”“Nation-states were created by the British and French in
1916. But the Middle East doesn’t work that way … Everything starts with the
individual, the family, the village, then the tribe, the community, the
religion… finally, the nation,” he told US reporters.
Rajji says Lebanon received warnings of major Israeli offensive
Naharnet/December 12/2025
Lebanon has received warnings from Arab and international parties that Israel is
preparing for a large-scale military operation against Lebanon, Foreign Minister
Youssef Rajji said Friday. "We are intensifying our diplomatic contacts to
protect Lebanon and Lebanese facilities from any Israeli strike," the LF
minister told Qatari al-Jazeera news channel, adding that Lebanon is currently
far from a peace treaty with Israel. "We are seeking to return to the Armistice
Agreement," he said. Speaker Nabih Berri and former Progressive Socialist Party
leader Walid Jumblat have both called for reviving the 1949 Armistice Agreement
that ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Asas Media news
portal reported Friday that the ceasefire committee, which now includes a
Lebanese and an Israeli civilian negotiators, would discuss in its upcoming
meetings the return to the 1949 Armistice Agreement.
Iran FM tells Rajji brotherly countries don't need neutral
place to meet
Agence France Presse/December 12/2025
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he was surprised that his Lebanese
counterpart declined an invitation to visit Iran, proposing instead to meet
Araghchi in a "neutral third country". Minister Youssef Rajji said on Wednesday
that he could not accept Araghchi's invitation to visit Tehran "under the
current circumstances.""This does not mean a refusal to engage in dialogue, but
rather that the conditions are not conducive to this visit," he wrote in a
statement on X. He said he invited Araghchi "to meet
in a neutral third country that we both agree on". He
also expressed readiness "to open a new chapter" in bilateral relations "based
strictly on mutual respect for each country's independence and sovereignty, and
on non-interference in each other's internal affairs".Araghchi is "always
welcome to visit Lebanon", Rajji added. "The foreign ministers of countries with
brotherly diplomatic ties do not need a neutral place to meet," Araghchi
responded Thursday, adding that he gladly accepts Rajji's invitation to visit
Beirut. "We also want to open a new chapter based on the values that Rajji
mentioned," Araghchi said. Araghchi had earlier this month invited Rajji to Iran
"to consult on the development of bilateral relations and review regional and
international developments", an Iranian foreign ministry statement said at the
time. On Friday, Rajji told al-Jazeera news channel that Lebanon has a problem
with Iran but is open to dialogue, provided that Iran stops "interfering in our
domestic affairs" and financing Hezbollah.
Hezbollah MPs meet Salam to discuss reconstruction and Israeli attacks
Naharnet/December 12/2025
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam held a meeting Friday at the Grand Serail with MPs
Amin Sherri and Hassan Fadlallah of Hezbollah. Following the meeting, Fadlallah
stated: "My colleague and I met with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to discuss a
range of issues of concern to all Lebanese, especially as we continue to witness
this ongoing Israeli aggression against our country, as happened today and as
happens on most days.” “While Lebanon fully adheres to
the ceasefire agreement of November 27, 2024, the enemy continues these
violations of the agreement and attacks on Lebanese sovereignty. We reiterate
today the necessity of exerting every possible effort to stop this Israeli
aggression and compel the enemy to implement the agreement, which remains the
only framework between us and this Israeli enemy, regardless of any other
details or proposals," Fadlallah added. The lawmaker however noted that the main
issue of discussion was “reconstruction and securing the necessary funding for
the required steps.” “We're not discussing the entire issue; we know it requires
significant funding. However, by breaking it down into specific points, we, as
the Lebanese state, can accomplish a lot,” Fadlallah added.
Aoun: Captives' return a priority in negotiations
Naharnet/December 12/2025
President Joseph Aoun announced Friday that the return of the Lebanese captives
held in Israel “represents a priority in the negotiations,” adding that
“contacts are ongoing for their release.” In a meeting with a delegation from
the Lebanese Association for Captives and and Liberated Detainees, Aoun hoped
there will be positive results in the file as soon as possible.
Berri says no negotiations unless Israel withdraws, stops attacks
Naharnet/December 12/2025
Lebanon has recently appointed a civilian, Former Lebanese Ambassador to the
United States Simon Karam, to lead Lebanon's delegation to the ceasefire
committee. Speaker Nabih Berri, a staunch ally of
Hezbollah, said the negotiations' priority must be a halt to the Israeli attacks
and that Israel must show its readiness to withdraw from at least one position
of the five hills it is occupying in south Lebanon. "Only then can we continue
the negotiations," Berri told local news portal Asas Media, in remarks published
Friday. "Without this (Israel's withdrawal and halt to attacks), it will be
impossible for us to agree to proceed with the meetings."
Berri said that Lebanon has done its part of the ceasefire agreement -
The Lebanese Army's deployment and Hezbollah's disarmament south of the Litani
river. "But Israel has continued its daily attacks on the South," he added,
accusing it of violating the ceasefire.Asas Media said the return to the 1949
Armistice Agreement, with amendments like the disarmament of Hezbollah south of
the Litani River, is a topic that would be discussed in the upcoming Mechanism
meetings. Berri said he fully supports the return to the Armistice Agreement, so
does former PSP leader Walid Jumblat.
But Asas Media said Israel is not interested in peace, as much as it is
interested in disarming Hezbollah south and east of the Litani to reassure the
residents of north Israel. Israel's demands are to turn the border region (three
to five kilometers from the border) to an uninhabited zone. This would mean
displacing the people of the border towns and villages with continuous strikes
and a systematic destruction of the area, Asas Media said. According to the news
portal, Israel also wants to disarm Hezbollah south of the Awali River beyond
the Litani. The Lebanese state would be responsible for the area north of the
Awali river, the report said. The Armistice Agreement was signed in March 1949.
It ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and demarcated the border between Lebanon
(and other Arab countries) and Israel. The agreement also required Israel to
withdraw from occupied Lebanese territory.
Jumblat says Iran cannot use Lebanon, Shiites to negotiate with US
Naharnet/December 12/2025
Former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat said he hoped
Hezbollah's leader Sheikh Naim Qassem "understands that Iran cannot use Lebanon,
or a segment of the Lebanese Shiites," to negotiate its nuclear program "or
anything else".
Jumblat said Thursday night that Lebanon is "between the Israeli hammer and the
Iranian anvil" that is trying to send messages to the U.S. through Lebanon.
US lawmakers press Israel to probe strike on reporters in
Lebanon
Agence France Presse/December 12/2025
Several Democratic lawmakers have called for the Israeli and U.S. governments to
fully investigate a deadly 2023 attack by the Israeli military on journalists in
southern Lebanon. The October 13, 2023 airstrike killed Reuters videographer
Issam Abdallah and wounded six other reporters, including two from AFP -- video
journalist Dylan Collins and photographer Christina Assi, who lost her leg. "We
expect the Israeli government to conduct an investigation that meets the
international standards and to hold accountable those people who did this,"
Senator Peter Welch told a news conference Thursday, with Collins by his
side.The lawmaker from Collins's home state of Vermont said he had been pushing
for answers for two years, first from the administration of Democratic president
Joe Biden and now from the Republican White House of Donald Trump.
The Israeli government has "stonewalled at every single turn," Welch
added. "With the Israeli government, we have been
extremely patient, and we have done everything we reasonably can to obtain
answers and accountability," he said. "The IDF has
made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident," Welch said,
referring to the Israeli military, adding that it has told his office its
investigation into the incident is closed. Collins called for Washington to
publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured. "But
I'd also like them to put pressure on their greatest ally in the Middle East,
the Israeli government, to bring the perpetrators to account," he said, echoing
the lawmakers who called the attack a "war crime.""We're not letting it go,"
Vermont congresswoman Becca Balint said. "It doesn't matter how long they
stonewall us." AFP conducted an independent investigation which concluded that
two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area in Israel. The
findings were corroborated by other international probes, including
investigations conducted by Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
Unlike Welch's assertion Thursday that the Israeli probe was over, the Israeli
army told AFP in October that "findings regarding the event have not yet been
concluded."
Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah a prelude to next round
against Iran
Elfadil Ibrahim/The Arab Weekly/December 12/2025
For Tehran, Hezbollah remains the flagship proxy and the lynchpin of its
‘forward strategy.’People walk past a damaged building during the funeral of
Hezbollah’s top military official Haytham Ali Tabtabai and of other people who
were killed by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, November 24,
2025. People walk past a damaged building during the
funeral of Hezbollah’s top military official Haytham Ali Tabtabai and of other
people who were killed by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut’s southern suburbs,
November 24, 2025.
With characteristic bluntness, Walid Jumblatt, the veteran Lebanese Druze
politician, recently warned against his country becoming a “mailbox for
dialogue” between foreign powers. It was a diagnosis that perfectly captures the
wider significance of Israel’s recent strikes on Beirut, laying bare how Lebanon
serves as the scorched earth where messages (and missiles) are exchanged between
Israel, Iran and the US. Jumblatt’s reading has never
felt more acute, especially against the background of a still fresh
confrontation between Israel (backed by American bunker-buster bombs) and the
Islamic Republic, which resulted in the systematic destruction of Iran’s air
defence network, the assassination of senior military commanders and the
targeting of its nuclear sites. Israel’s latest message to Hezbollah and Iran
arrived on November 23 in Haret Hreik, an Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut’s
southern suburbs. An Israeli air strike, authorised personally by Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu, flattened a residential block and killed Haytham Ali
Tabtabai, the paramilitary’s newly-appointed chief of staff. Israel, emboldened
by its aerial victory over Tehran, and the weakened state of its Lebanese foe,
is no longer interested in managing the Hezbollah threat. It intends to erase
it, with Netanyahu having already issued a warning last year to the Lebanese
government and people to “free your country from Hezbollah” or risk “destruction
and suffering like we see in Gaza.”But the view from Tehran is, in many ways,
even more consequential for Lebanon. In a recent address, Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei projected the characteristic defiance, claiming that in the 12-Day War,
“the Zionist regime came and perpetrated malicious acts. They took a beating and
left empty-handed.” Yet behind this strong language lies a terrifying
realisation for the Islamic Republic.
Militarily, it is arguably weaker than at any point since the end of the
Iran-Iraq war in 1988. Its skies are defenceless (though Iran claims to have
rebuilt its air defences), and its nuclear leverage is much reduced. This has
fundamentally altered its view of Hezbollah. Before June, the paramilitary was a
sword to project power, today however, it is perhaps the last remaining shield
for the Islamic Republic’s own survival.
This explains the comments by Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to the
Supreme Leader, who in late November declared that Hezbollah’s existence “more
essential than bread and water” for Lebanon.
This sentiment triggered a furious and public rebuke from the Lebanese state.
Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi blasted Velayati’s statement as a flagrant
violation of sovereignty. “What is more important to us than water and bread is
our sovereignty, our freedom, and the independence of our internal
decision-making,” Raggi wrote on X, addressing his Iranian counterpart Abbas
Araghchi directly. He decried the “ideological slogans and transborder regional
agendas that have devastated our country.”It was a rare moment of unfiltered
candour, evidence that the Lebanese government is no longer whispering its
resentment, it is shouting it for all to hear. Raggi went even further in a
subsequent interview with Al Arabiya to admit that “Hezbollah cannot hand over
its weapons without an Iranian decision,” a clear concession that the keys to
Lebanon’s war and peace are held not in Beirut, but in Tehran.
As the war of words heats up between Beirut and Tehran, Israel, having reduced
its fighting in Gaza amidst the fragile ceasefire there, is aggressively
shifting its operational scope towards its neighbours. In addition to hunting
down Hezbollah’s leadership in the Lebanese capital, the Israeli Defence Forces
(IDF) has escalated its campaign in Syria, executing a brazen ground incursion
in the town of Beit Jin that left a trail of casualties. The theatre of conflict
threatens to widen further still, especially on the back of US Envoy Tom
Barrack’s reported ultimatum to Baghdad, warning that if Iranian-backed militias
there intervene to support Hezbollah, Israel will not hesitate to strike Iraqi
soil. Moreover, these strikes and threats appear to be the prelude to a ‘round
two’ against the Islamic Republic itself. Speaking at Tel Aviv University,
Defence Ministry Director-General Amir Baram recently warned that “Iran’s rapid
force build-up” means that “all fronts are still open.” For Israel (and indeed
for Iran) the next round of direct fighting is an inevitability for which it
must be technologically and militarily prepared.
Netanyahu recently removed any ambiguity regarding this sequencing. In a recent
interview, he boasted that the June war “knocked out” Iran’s top nuclear
scientists and command, removing the immediate threat of “nuclear annihilation.”
However, acknowledging that Tehran would reconstitute its nuclear programme he
explicitly outlined Israel’s current operational phase: “Our focus right now is
on the Iran axis … Let’s finish the job there.” The implication is clear, once
the proxy shield is dismantled, the path to Tehran will be open once more.
For Tehran, Hezbollah remains the flagship proxy, the closest and most capable
partner on Israel’s northern front and the lynchpin of its ‘forward strategy.’
Therefore, preventing that dismantling has become Tehran’s top priority, leading
to a massive financial effort to regenerate Hezbollah’s capabilities. According
to the US Treasury officials, Iran has funnelled approximately $1 billion to
Hezbollah in the past year alone. This funding moves through a murky network of
money exchanges, bolstered by an army of travellers physically smuggling cash in
suitcases to bypass the formal banking sector. This financial lifeline allows
Hezbollah to pay stipends to the families of its “martyrs” and recruit new
fighters, even as the Lebanese state crumbles. For Israel, this rebuilding
effort is a red line. The current Israeli bombardment is therefore not just
about killing commanders, it is an attempt to bankrupt the organisation by
destroying the physical assets that Iran is paying to rebuild.
As the collision between Israel and Lebanon’s parallel state accelerates,
Lebanon’s official leaders, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf
Salam, are left governing a burning building with no fire escape. In August, the
cabinet symbolically voted to disarm non-state militias, a move Hezbollah
largely ignored, and one the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) has no power to enforce
without triggering the civil war President Aoun has vowed to avoid.
With the United States signalling that financial bailouts are conditional
on disarmament, (a message reinforced by the new, hawkish US Ambassador Michel
Issa) Beirut has limited room to manoeuvre. Since Jerusalem and Washington
believe the 12-Day War created a unique window to finish off the Islamic
Republic and its ‘axis of resistance’ network once and for all, they are both
squeezing the Lebanese government to do the dirty work that the Israeli Air
Force cannot finish from the sky. Ultimately, the
violence in Lebanon serves as a barometer for the increasing likelihood of a
second direct war between Israel and Iran. Israel is betting that it can
dismantle Iran’s proxy network before Tehran can regenerate Hezbollah’s
pre-October 7 military might. Tehran is betting on the opposite, that by
blocking disarmament it can buy time, bolster Hezbollah’s capabilities and lure
Israel into a Lebanese quagmire, bleeding the IDF long enough for the Islamic
Republic to recover its strength.
This collision course is locked in by Hezbollah leadership, with Naim Qassem’s
recently reiterating the group’s refusal to disarm. This position reflects the
desperate view from Tehran, where for the Iranian generals who survived the June
campaign, and for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself (whom Israel has
explicitly threatened to ‘eliminate’), maintaining an armed proxy on the border
is the essential hedge against a second wave of attacks. Hezbollah has therefore
mutated from a strategic asset into what Iranian officials now call ‘bread and
water,’ an existential necessity perhaps more vital for the Islamic Republic’s
survival than for the safety of Lebanon’s displaced and distraught Shia
population.
**Elfadil Ibrahim/is a writer and analyst focusing on Sudanese and Arab
politics.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous
Reports And News published
on
December 12-13/2025
A Matter Concerning the Future of Religious Freedom
in Canada
From: The Hon. Pierre Poilievre, P.C., M.P.
Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and the Conservative Party of Canada
Mark Carney’s Liberal government is proposing a change to the Criminal Code that
could lead to you being charged for preaching your beliefs, passing on your
traditions or celebrating your religion.
I know that sounds unbelievable. But you don’t have to take my word for it -
Liberal MP Marc Miller infamously said that many religious texts contain
“statements” he found “hateful” and that “there should perhaps be discretion for
prosecutors to press charges.” You can watch that clip by clicking here.
After making those remarks, Mark Carney has made Miller Minister of Canadian
Identity and Culture, a promotion that gives him responsibility for the CRTC and
CBC, and significant sway over new online content rules.
The Carney Liberals want to use Bill C-9 to repeal important provisions that
protect those speaking “on a religious subject or…based on a belief in a
religious text”. Without these long-established safeguards for persons acting
“in good faith” – meaning reasonably and without malicious intent – preaching on
certain doctrines could soon be considered a hate crime. This is especially
concerning given that the government is trying to introduce a new definition of
“hate” that could extend to any speech the government finds objectionable.
This is unacceptable in Canada. Bluntly, the Liberals and Bloc Québécois are
working together to repeal the religious defence, which could lead to faith
leaders, or any Canadian, facing jail time.
I want to be absolutely clear: Conservatives will defend your religious freedom.
In fact, we have introduced legislation of our own, like Bill C-255, An Act to
amend the Criminal Code (mischief — religious property), to keep places of
worship secure. But instead of protecting religious organizations, the Liberals
and Bloc are working together to threaten your ability to teach and preach.
I ask that you show your support by clicking here to sign the Conservative
petition. Everyone who signs the petition will be invited to an upcoming virtual
townhall meeting on this topic.
And please share the petition with those in your network. Please especially make
a point to share it with faith leaders who have Liberal and Bloc MPs - they need
to know what their elected representative is voting on in Ottawa.
As Conservatives defend these precious liberties in the face of government
overreach, we look forward to discussing this important and timely issue with
you directly in the coming weeks.
Sincerely,
The Hon. Pierre Poilievre, P.C., M.P.
Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and the Conservative Party of Canada
US aims for international Gaza force deployment early next year, say US
officials
Reuters/13 December ,2025
International troops could be deployed in the Gaza Strip as early as next month
to form a UN-authorized stabilization force, two US officials told Reuters, but
it remains unclear how Palestinian militant group Hamas will be disarmed. The
officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the International
Stabilization Force would not fight Hamas. They said lots of countries had
expressed interest in contributing and US officials are currently working out
the size of the ISF, composition, housing, training and rules of engagement. The
US Central Command will host a conference in Doha on December 16 with partner
nations to plan the International Stabilization Force for Gaza, the officials
said. More than 25 countries are expected to send representatives to the
conference, which will include sessions on the command structure and other
issues related to the Gaza force, they said. An American two-star general is
being considered to lead the ISF but no decisions have been made, the officials
said. Deployment of the force is a key part of the
next phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Under the first
phase, a fragile ceasefire in the two-year-old war began on October 10 and Hamas
has released hostages and Israel has freed detained Palestinians. “There is a
lot of quiet planning that’s going on behind the scenes right now for phase two
of the peace deal,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters on
Thursday.
“We want to ensure an enduring and lasting peace.”
Indonesia preparing troops
Indonesia has said it is prepared to deploy up to 20,000 troops to take on
health and construction-related tasks in Gaza. “It is still in the planning and
preparation stages,” said Rico Sirait, spokesperson of Indonesian Defense
Ministry. “We are now preparing the organizational structure of the forces to be
deployed.” Israel still controls 53 percent of Gaza, while nearly all the 2
million people in the enclave live in the remaining Hamas-held area. The plan -
which needs to be finalized by the so-called Board of Peace - is for the ISF to
deploy in the area held by Israel, the US officials said. Then, according to the
Trump peace plan, as the ISF establishes control and stability, Israeli troops
will gradually withdraw “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked
to demilitarization.” A UN Security Council resolution adopted on November 17
authorized a Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish the ISF.
Trump said on Wednesday that an announcement on which world leaders will serve
on the Board of Peace will be made early next year.
Demilitarizing Gaza
The Security Council authorized the ISF to work alongside newly trained and
vetted Palestinian police to stabilize security “by ensuring the process of
demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of
rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the
permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”However, it
remains unclear exactly how that would work. US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz
noted on Thursday that the ISF was authorized by the Security Council to
demilitarize Gaza by all means necessary - which means use of force. “Obviously
that’ll be a conversation with each country,” he told Israel’s Channel 12,
adding that discussions on rules of engagement were underway.
Hamas has said the issue of disarmament has not been discussed with them
formally by the mediators - the US, Egypt and Qatar - and the group’s stance
remains that it will not disarm until a Palestinian state is established.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech on Sunday that the
second phase would move toward demilitarization and disarmament. “Now that
raises a question: Our friends in America want to try and establish a
multinational task force to do the job,” he said. “I
told them I welcome it. Are volunteers here? Be my guest,” Netanyahu said.
“We know there are certain tasks that this force can perform ... but some
things are beyond their abilities, and perhaps the main thing is beyond their
abilities, but we will see about that,” he said.
UN agency warns displaced Gazans facing floods as Israel blocks emergency
supplies
Reuters, Geneva/12 December/2025
Hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans face flooding of their tents and
shelters by heavy rains, and materials for shelters and sandbags are not being
allowed to enter the enclave, the UN International Organization for Migration
said on Friday. Torrential rain swept across the Gaza
Strip on Thursday, flooding hundreds of tents sheltering families displaced by
two years of war, and leading to the death of a baby girl due to exposure, local
health officials said. Nearly 795,000 displaced people
are at heightened risk of potentially dangerous flooding in low-lying,
rubble-filled areas where families are living in unsafe shelters, the IOM said.
Insufficient drainage and waste management also heightened the risk of disease
outbreak, the UN agency added. Materials to help reinforce shelters such as
timber and plywood, as well as sandbags and water pumps to help with flooding
have been delayed from entering Gaza due to ongoing access restrictions from
Israel, the IOM said. Israel claims it is meeting its obligations and accuses
agencies of inefficiency and failing to prevent theft by Hamas, which the group
denies. COGAT, the Israeli military arm that oversees humanitarian matters, was
not immediately available for comment. Supplies already dispatched to Gaza,
including waterproof tents, thermal blankets and tarpaulins, were not able to
withstand the flooding, the IOM added. “After this
storm made landfall yesterday, families are trying to protect their children
with whatever they have,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said.
A ceasefire has broadly held since October, but the war destroyed much of
Gaza’s infrastructure, and living conditions are dire. UN and Palestinian
officials said at least 300,000 new tents are urgently needed for the roughly
1.5 million people still displaced.
Israeli settlements in West Bank growing at highest level
since 2017: UN report
AFP/13 December/2025
The expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is at its highest
level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking such data,
according to a report by the United Nations secretary-general seen by AFP on
Friday. In 2025, “plans for nearly 47,390 housing
units were advanced, approved, or tendered, compared with some 26,170 in 2024,”
the report said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
condemned what he called the “relentless” expansion in a statement accompanying
the report, saying it “continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians
to their land and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic,
contiguous and sovereign Palestinian State.”
Gaza civil defense says 16 dead as heavy rains batter
territory
AFP/13 December /2025
Gaza’s civil defense agency on Friday said at least 16 people had died in the
last 24 hours, including three children who died from exposure to the cold, as a
winter storm batters the territory. Heavy rain from Storm Byron has flooded
tents and temporary shelters across the Gaza Strip since late Wednesday,
compounding the suffering of the territory’s residents, nearly all of whom were
displaced during more than two years of war. Gaza’s civil defense agency, which
operates as a rescue force under Hamas authority, told AFP three children had
died from exposure to the cold - two in Gaza City and one in Khan Younis in the
south. Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City confirmed the deaths of Hadeel al-Masri,
aged nine, and Taim al-Khawaja, who it said was just several months old.
Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Thursday said eight-month-old Rahaf Abu
Jazar had died in the nearby tented encampment of Al-Mawasi due to the cold.
With most of Gaza’s buildings destroyed or damaged, thousands of tents and
makeshift shelters now line areas cleared of rubble. Civil defense spokesman
Mahmud Bassal said six people died when a house collapsed in the Bir al-Naja
area of the northern Gaza Strip. Two bodies were recovered from the rubble of a
home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, he added.
Five others died when walls collapsed in multiple separate incidents,
Bassal said. In a statement, the civil defense said
its teams had responded to calls from “13 houses that collapsed due to heavy
rains and strong winds, mostly in Gaza City and the north.”
No dry clothes
Under gloomy skies in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, Palestinians used
bowls, buckets and hoes to try and remove the water that had pooled around their
tents made of plastic sheeting. Young children, some barefoot and others wearing
open sandals, trudged and hopped through ponds of muddy water as the rain
continued to fall. “The mattress has been soaked since
this morning, and the children slept in wet bedding last night,” Umm Muhammad
Joudah told AFP. “We don’t have any dry clothes to
change into.”Saif Ayman, a 17-year-old who was on crutches due to a leg injury,
said his tent had also been submerged. “In this tent we have no blankets. There
are six of us sleeping on one mattress, and we cover ourselves with our
clothes,” he said. Jonathan Crickx, spokesman for the UN children’s agency who
is currently in Gaza, told AFP night-time temperatures could drop to around
eight or nine degrees Celsius (46-48 degrees Fahrenheit). “The rains are heavy,
and these families are living in makeshift tents battered by the wind, where
they’re barely protected by a plastic tarp,” he said. Samer Morsi, a 22-year-old
displaced Palestinian sheltering in the central area of Deir al-Balah, said he
had “spent the night holding onto the tent pole so it wouldn’t fly away in the
strong wind.”“We don’t know how to cope with these harsh conditions,” he added.
“We are human beings with feelings, not made of stone.”
‘Appalling hygiene conditions’
Crickx also described “absolutely appalling hygiene and sanitary conditions,”
saying there was a fear that preventable waterborne illnesses could spread.
“There aren’t enough toilets, there are places - I saw some in Gaza City
- where large pools of water are essentially open sewers right next to the
displacement camps. So we’re especially concerned for the immediate health of
the children,” he said. A ceasefire between Israel and
militant group Hamas that took effect in October has partially eased
restrictions on goods and aid entering into the Gaza Strip.
But supplies have entered in insufficient quantities, according to the
United Nations, and the humanitarian needs are still immense. The UN’s World
Health Organization warned on Friday that thousands of families were “sheltering
in low-lying or debris-filled coastal areas with no drainage or protective
barriers.”“Winter conditions, combined with poor water and sanitation, are
expected to drive a surge in acute respiratory infections,” it added.
US officials say Gaza stabilization force will not fight
Hamas
Reuters/December 12, 2025
NEW YORK: International troops could be deployed in the Gaza Strip as early as
next month to form a UN-authorized stabilization force, two US officials said,
but it remains unclear how Hamas will be disarmed. Officials said the
International Stabilization Force, or ISF, would not fight Hamas. They said many
countries have expressed interest in contributing, and US officials are
currently working out the size of the ISF, its composition, housing, training,
and rules of engagement. There is a lot of quiet planning that’s going on behind
the scenes right now for phase two of the peace deal.
Karoline Leavitt, White House spokesperson
An American two-star general is under consideration to lead the ISF, but no
decision has been made, officials said. Deployment of the force is a key part of
the next phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Under the first
phase, a fragile ceasefire in the two-year war began on Oct.10, and Hamas
released hostages, and Israel freed detained Palestinians. “There is a lot of
quiet planning that’s going on behind the scenes right now for phase two of the
peace deal,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. “We want to ensure
an enduring and lasting peace.” Indonesia has said it is prepared to deploy up
to 20,000 troops to take on health and construction-related tasks in Gaza. “It
is still in the planning and preparation stages,” said Rico Sirait, spokesperson
of the Indonesian Defense Ministry. “We are now preparing the organizational
structure of the forces to be deployed.”Israel still controls 53 percent of
Gaza, while nearly all the 2 million people in the enclave live in the remaining
Hamas-held area. The plan — which needs to be finalized by the so-called Board
of Peace — is for the ISF to deploy in the area held by Israel, the US officials
said. Then, according to the Trump peace plan, as the ISF establishes control
and stability, Israeli troops will gradually withdraw “based on standards,
milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization.”A UN Security Council
resolution adopted on Nov. 17 authorized a Board of Peace and countries working
with it to establish the ISF.
Trump said on Wednesday that an announcement on which world leaders will serve
on the Board of Peace will be made early next year.
The Security Council authorized the ISF to work alongside newly trained and
vetted Palestinian police to stabilize security “by ensuring the process of
demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of
rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the
permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”However, it
remains unclear exactly how that would work. US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz
noted on Thursday that the Security Council authorized the ISF to demilitarize
Gaza by all means necessary, which means the use of force. “Obviously, that’ll
be a conversation with each country,” he told Israel’s Channel 12, adding that
discussions on rules of engagement were underway.
Hamas has said the issue of disarmament has not been discussed with them
formally by the mediators — the US, Egypt, and Qatar — and the group’s stance
remains that it will not disarm until a Palestinian state is established.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech on Sunday that the
second phase would move toward demilitarization and disarmament. “Now that
raises a question: Our friends in America want to try and establish a
multinational task force to do the job,” he said. “I told them I welcome it. Are
volunteers here? Be my guest,” Netanyahu said. “We
know there are certain tasks that this force can perform ... but some things are
beyond their abilities, and perhaps the main thing is beyond their abilities,
but we will see about that,” he said.
Netanyahu to meet President Trump on December 29 amid muted tensions over Gaza,
West Bank
The Arab Weekly/December 12/2025
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu and Trump were expected to meet
twice during an eight-day visit to the United States by the Israeli prime
minister. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
will meet President Donald Trump in the United States on December 29, as the two
countries mull different visions for the next steps towards implementing the US
20-point plan for Gaza. It will be Netanyahu’s fifth
visit to meet Trump in the US since the start of the year and comes after the
prime minister said he expected the second phase of the US-sponsored ceasefire
plan for Gaza to begin soon.
“The meeting between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu will take
place Monday, December 29,” Shosh Bedrosian, spokeswoman for the prime
minister’s office, said. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu and Trump
were expected to meet twice during an eight-day visit to the United States by
the Israeli prime minister.
It said Netanyahu would visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Netanyahu said on Sunday he would meet Trump later in December to discuss
“opportunities for peace” in the Middle East, with his office saying he was
invited to the White House during a phone call with the president.
Netanyahu also said he expected the second phase of the Gaza truce plan
to begin soon. “We very shortly expect to move into the second phase, which is
more difficult,” he said. The first phase of the truce, in effect since October
10, has halted the war that began after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on
October 7, 2023.It has also seen militants release 47 out of 48 hostages held in
Gaza, including the last 20 living captives. The second stage of the plan
concerns disarming Hamas, the further withdrawal of Israeli forces as a
transitional authority is established, and the deployment of an international
stabilisation force (ISF). The United States is the primary military and
diplomatic supporter of Israel but areas of tension have emerged between the two
allies, including the issue of annexing the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Several members of Netanyahu’s government have called for the territory
to be annexed but Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have voiced their
firm opposition to such a move. While Israel wants to exert total control over
the course of events in Gaza, the Trump administration is seeking to further
entrench its own future role in the enclave. US Ambassador to the United Nations
Mike Waltz, who visited Israel this week, told Netanyahu and other officials
that the Trump administration is going to lead the ISF and appoint a two-star
general as its commander, Axios said. President Donald
Trump told reporters on Wednesday that an announcement about which world leaders
will serve on the Gaza Board of Peace, which will oversee the course of events
in the enclave, should be made early next year. “It’ll
be one of the most legendary boards ever. Everybody wants to be on it,” Trump
said at the White House on Wednesday. Israel wants the second phase of the Gaza
truce agreement to start only after it receives the last hostage body and its
army makes more progress towards reducing the military presence of Hamas and
other militant groups in the enclave. “Much (of the second phase) is left open
to interpretation, which, in the Middle East is both the best and the worst
thing,” an Israeli official told CNN. “The question is whether, in the meantime,
Hamas remains there, and that’s it, we just get used to it and accept it,”
another Israeli official said.
Hamas disarmament, role of international force major sticking points in second
phase of US plan for Gaza
The Arab Weekly/December 12/2025
Both sides jockey for positions with Hamas describing weapons as its very
“soul.”
A wide gap still separates the positions of Israel and Hamas over many issues
ahead of the second phase of the US-mediated Gaza truce plan. But no other issue
looks more daunting than the disarmament of the Palestinian militant group.
The ceasefire, in effect since October 10, has halted the devastating war
in Gaza. But it remains fragile as Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost
daily of violations and both jockey for positions ahead of the second phase with
Hamas describing weapons as its very “soul.”The October agreement is composed of
three phases. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently indicated that
he expected the second phase to begin soon. Under that
phase Israeli troops would further withdraw from their positions in Gaza and be
replaced by an international stabilisation force (ISF), while Hamas would lay
down its weapons. Israel said on Thursday that Hamas “will be disarmed” as part
of the US-sponsored peace plan for Gaza, after top Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal
told Qatari news channel Al Jazeera that the militant group is open to a weapons
“freeze,” but rejects the demand for total disarmament put forward in Trump’s
plan for the Palestinian territory.
Shosh Bedrosian, spokeswoman for the Israeli prime minister’s office, said
“Israel will continue to follow the 20-point plan. There will be no Hamas inside
of the Gaza Strip. Hamas will be disarmed.”“The prime minister says this will
happen the easy way or the hard way,” Bedrosian told journalists in a briefing.
While the Palestinian militant group is emphasising its refusal to give up its
arsenal, the Israeli army is indicating its intent to keep the “yellow line” as
a permanent demarcation border. “The idea of total disarmament is unacceptable
to the resistance (Hamas),” Meshaal said. “What is being proposed is a freeze,
or storage (of weapons) … to provide guarantees against any military escalation
from Gaza with the Israeli occupation,” he added. “This is the idea we’re
discussing with the mediators, and I believe that with pragmatic American
thinking … such a vision could be agreed upon with the US administration,” he
said. “Disarming the Palestinians means removing their soul,” Meshaal also said.
“Our experience with the occupation is that when the Palestinian weapon is
removed, the massacres begin.”Hamas sees arms as its insurance policy. Senior
Hamas official Bassem Naim told US radio network NPR, “We are ready to lay down
these weapons. I mean, not to use it for five, seven, ten years, as long as we
are not attacked because the second question is always, OK, Palestinians have to
be disarmed. What about the other side?”
Netanyahu is expected to meet US President Donald Trump in the United States on
December 29 to discuss the next steps in the truce. In
the first phase of the deal, Palestinian militants committed to releasing the
remaining 48 living and dead captives held in the territory. So far they have
released all of the hostages except for one body. In
exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in its custody
and returned the bodies of hundreds of dead Palestinians.
As for the international peacekeeping force, Meshaal said the group was
open to its deployment along Gaza’s border with Israel, but would not agree to
it operating inside the territory, calling such a plan an “occupation.”“We have
no objection to international forces or international stabilisation forces being
deployed along the border, like UNIFIL,” he said, referring to the UN
peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border.
Meshaal said such forces would separate Gaza from Israel.
Mediators as well as Arab and Islamic nations, he said, could act as
“guarantors” that there would be no escalation originating from inside Gaza.
Turkey, which maintains close ties to Hamas, wants the international
stabilisation force to focus first on the separation of Israeli troops and Hamas
instead of disarming the Palestinian group. “Disarmament cannot be the first
stage in this process,” Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan recently told a
forum in Doha. He said that the ISF’s first task “should be to separate
Palestinians from the Israelis.”The Trump administration is planning to appoint
an American two-star general to command the International Stabilisation Force in
Gaza, Axios reported on Thursday, citing US and Israeli officials. The US
already maintains a centre on the border of Gaza overseeing the implementation
of President Donald Trump’s plan. Cairo wants this force to monitor the truce
and not to enforce it. “We need to deploy this force as soon as possible on the
ground because one side, Israel, every day is violating the ceasefire, but
claims the other side is responsible so we need monitors along the yellow side
in order to verify and monitor,” Egyptian foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty said.
The ISF mandate “should be peace monitoring not peace enforcement,” he added.
Iran seizes foreign tanker carrying 6 million liters of
‘smuggled diesel’ in Gulf of Oman
Reuters/12 December/2025
Iran has seized a foreign tanker allegedly carrying 6 million liters of
“smuggled diesel” in the Gulf of Oman, Iranian state media said on Friday. Iran,
which has some of the world’s lowest fuel prices due to heavy subsidies and the
plunge in the value of its national currency, has been fighting rampant fuel
smuggling by land to neighboring countries and by sea to Gulf Arab states.State
broadcaster IRIB did not mention the name of the vessel or give its nationality
on its website.
US plan sees Ukraine joining EU in 2027: Official
AFP/12 December/2025
Ukraine would join the European Union as early as January 2027 under the latest
US plan to end the war with Russia, a senior source familiar with the matter
told AFP on Friday. The complicated EU accession process usually takes years and
requires a unanimous vote from all 27 members of the bloc, and some countries,
most notably Hungary, have consistently voiced opposition to Ukraine joining.
The idea of a speedy accession is included in the latest version of a
US-led plan to end the war, which would also see Ukraine cede land to Russia,
and has triggered a diplomatic frenzy across Europe in recent weeks. “It’s
stated there but it’s a matter for negotiation, and the Americans support it,”
the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, referring to the
US plan. Washington has the leverage needed to convince leaders opposed to
Ukraine’s membership to change their stance, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told
journalists, including AFP, on Thursday. “The United States can take steps to
unblock our path to the European Union,” he said, adding that “the US president
has various levers of influence and that this will have an effect on those who
are currently blocking Ukraine.”Kyiv has long strived for EU membership and has
been implementing reforms since a pro-European 2014 revolution but has struggled
to eradicate endemic corruption - a core prerequisite for joining the bloc.
After completing a diplomatic tour across Europe last week, Zelenskyy was due in
Berlin on Monday for more talks on the plan, full details of which have not been
released. Zelenskyy will discuss “the status of peace negotiations in Ukraine”
with “numerous European heads of state and government, as well as the leaders of
the EU and NATO,” Berlin said.
A long road
Moscow on Friday indicated it was suspicious about the efforts to amend the US
plan, which it has largely been supportive of and heeded to most of its core
demands. “We have an impression that this version,
which is being put forward for discussion, will be worsened,” Kremlin foreign
policy aide Yuri Ushakov told the Kommersant business daily. “It’ll be a long
process,” he added, saying that Moscow had not seen an updated version of the
plan since discussions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US envoys
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow last week. Zelenskyy said Thursday
that Washington wants only Ukraine, not Russia, to withdraw its troops from
parts of the eastern Donetsk region, where a demilitarised “free economic zone”
would be installed as a buffer between the two armies. Russia, which has the
numerical advantage in manpower and weapons, has been grinding forward on the
battlefield for months, notching up its quickest advance for a year in November.
However on Friday, Ukraine claimed to have retaken two settlements near Kupiansk
- a strategically important city and a key railway hub in the northeast of the
country. Zelenskyy visited the troops near Kupiansk to congratulate them - and
recorded a video of himself on a road at the entrance to the southwest of the
city. A Russian airstrike damaged a Turkish-owned cargo vessel in Ukraine’s
Black Sea region of Odesa, Kyiv and the operator said Friday, triggering fresh
calls from Ankara to halt strikes on port infrastructure. Turkey earlier warned
of a “worrying escalation” in the Black Sea after Ukraine claimed naval drone
attacks on Russia-linked tankers in the area.
Trump 'frustrated' with Kyiv, Moscow over talks on war
Associated Press/12 December/2025
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that negotiators are wrestling
with the question of territorial possession in U.S.-led peace talks on ending
the war with Russia, including the future of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region
and the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the world's 10
biggest atomic plants. Zelensky revealed details of the ongoing discussions
before he headed Thursday into urgent talks with leaders and officials from
about 30 countries that support Kyiv's efforts to obtain fair terms in any
settlement to halt nearly four years of fighting.
In Washington, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President
Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, continued to be in discussions with
both sides. She said that "if there is a real chance of signing a peace
agreement," then the U.S. could send a representative to the talks as soon as
this weekend. But Leavitt added that it's "still up in
the air whether we believe real peace can be achieved." Trump long boasted about
being able to solve Russia's war in Ukraine in a day, but in recent months has
complained bitterly about a lack of progress. Leavitt echoed that during her
briefing with reporters on Thursday, saying the president is "extremely
frustrated with both sides of this war."She said the administration had spent
30-plus hours just in recent weeks meeting with officials from Russia and
Ukraine as well as Europe, and that Trump is "sick of meetings just for the sake
of meeting." "He doesn't want any more talk," Leavitt said. "He wants
action."Ukraine has submitted a 20-point plan to the U.S., with each point
possibly accompanied by a separate document detailing the settlement terms.
"We are grateful that the U.S. is working with us and trying to take a
balanced position," Zelensky told reporters in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. "But
at this moment it is still difficult to say what the final documents will look
like." Russia has in recent months made a determined push to gain control of all
parts of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which together make up Ukraine's
valuable Donbas industrial region. Ukraine doesn't accept the surrender of
Donbas, Zelensky said, saying that both sides remaining where they currently
stand along the line of contact would be "a fair outcome." American negotiators
have put forward the possibility of a "free economic zone" in the Donbas, with
the Russians terming it a "demilitarized zone," according to Zelensky.
Russian officials have not publicly disclosed their proposals.
U.S. negotiators foresee Ukrainian forces withdrawing from the Donetsk
region, with the compromise being that Russian forces do not enter that
territory, Zelensky said.
But he said that if Ukraine must withdraw its forces, the Russians should also
withdraw by the same distance. There are many unanswered questions, including
who would oversee the Donbas, he added. The Russians want to retain control of
the Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine, which is not currently operating,
but Ukraine opposes that.
The Americans have suggested a joint format to manage the plant, and negotiators
are discussing how that might work, Zelensky said.
Ukraine's allies discuss peace plan with Zelensky
The leaders of Germany, Britain and France were among those taking part in the
meeting of Ukraine's allies, dubbed the Coalition of the Willing, via video
link. Zelensky indicated the talks were hastily
arranged as Kyiv officials scramble to avoid getting boxed in by U.S. President
Donald Trump, who has disparaged the Ukrainian leader, painted European leaders
as weak, and set a strategy of improving Washington's relationship with Moscow.
In the face of Trump's demands for a swift settlement, European governments are
trying to help steer the peace negotiations because they say their own security
is at stake. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday that he, British
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron suggested to
Trump that they finalize the peace proposals together with U.S. officials over
the weekend. There may also be talks in Berlin early next week, with or without
American officials, he said. The talks are at "a critical moment," European
leaders said Wednesday. Next week, Ukraine will coordinate with European
countries on a bilateral level, Zelensky said late Wednesday, and European Union
countries are due to hold a regular summit in Brussels at the end of next week.
Russia has new proposals on security
Trump's latest effort to broker a settlement is taking longer than he wanted. He
initially set a deadline for Kyiv to accept his peace plan before Thanksgiving.
Previous Washington deadlines for reaching a peace deal also have passed without
a breakthrough. Russia is also keen to show Trump it is engaging with his peace
efforts, hoping to avoid further U.S. sanctions. Russia's Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Russia has relayed to Washington "additional
proposals … concerning collective security guarantees" that Ukraine and Europe
say are needed to deter future aggression. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte
said Thursday that so far this year Russia has launched over 46,000 drones and
missiles against Ukraine. He warned his European
audience at a speech in Berlin: "We are Russia's next target."
He also described China as "Russia's lifeline" for its war effort in
Ukraine by providing most of the critical electronic components Moscow needs for
its weapons. "China wants to prevent its ally from losing in Ukraine," Rutte
said.
Russia claims battlefield progress
Putin claimed Thursday in a call with military leaders that Russian armed forces
are "fully holding the strategic initiative" on the battlefield. Russian troops
have taken the city of Siversk, in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine where
fighting has been fierce in recent months, Lt. Gen. Sergei Medvedev told Putin.
Ukrainian officials denied Siversk had been captured.
Putin wants to portray himself as negotiating from a position of strength,
analysts say, although Russia occupies only about 20% of Ukraine. That includes
Moscow's 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and the seizure of territory in the
east by Russia-backed separatists later that year, as well as land taken after
the full-blown invasion in 2022.
Ukrainian drones hit Russian oil rig, disrupt Moscow flights
Meanwhile, Ukrainian long-range drones hit a Russian oil rig in the Caspian Sea
for the first time, according to an official in the Security Service of Ukraine
who was not authorized to talk publicly about the attack and spoke on condition
of anonymity. The oil rig in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, about 1,000
kilometers (600 miles) from Ukraine, belongs to Russia's second-biggest oil
company, Lukoil, the official told The Associated Press. The rig took four hits,
halting the extraction of oil and gas from over 20 wells, he said. Russian
officials and Lukoil made no immediate comment on the claim. Ukraine also
launched one of its biggest drone attacks of the war overnight, halting flights
in and out of all four Moscow airports for seven hours. Airports in eight other
cities also faced restrictions, Russian civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia
said.
Russia attacks two Ukrainian ports, damaging three
Turkish-owned vessels
Reuters/12 December/2025
Russia attacked two Ukrainian ports on Friday, damaging three Turkish-owned
vessels including a ship carrying food supplies, Ukrainian officials and one
ship owner said, days after Moscow threatened to cut “Ukraine off from the
sea.”Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation against
Kyiv’s maritime drone attacks on Moscows “shadow fleet” tankers thought to be
used to export oil, which Kyiv says is Russia’s main source of funding for its
almost four-year-old war. The attack on Friday came hours after Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Putin that a limited ceasefire for energy
facilities and ports could be beneficial. Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted photos which showed a large fire burning
aboard a ship in the port of Chornomorsk in Odesa region, with firefighters
tackling the blaze. “This proves once again that Russians not only fail to take
the current opportunity for diplomacy seriously enough, but also continue the
war precisely to destroy normal life in Ukraine,” he said. That vessel’s owner,
Cenk Shipping, said Cenk T vessel had been subject to attack around 16:00
Ukraine time (1400 GMT). “At this stage, there are no reports of casualties or
injuries among the crew. Based on the information currently available, the
damage appears to be limited,” it said in a statement. Russia’s defense ministry
did not immediately reply to Reuters’ request for comment. “The strike is aimed
at civilian logistics and commercial shipping,” Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister
Oleksiy Kuleba said.
Navigation safety targeted
Russia attacked Ukrainian ports with drones and ballistic missiles, Kuleba
added. He said that one employee of a private company
had been injured in a separate attack on Odesa port, and that a cargo loader had
been damaged there. Ukraine’s navy spokesperson told
Reuters that three vessels were damaged in total, all Turkish-owned. But the
spokesperson did not provide additional details.
Turkey’s foreign ministry confirmed damage in the Chornomorsk port, adding that
there were no reports of injured Turkish citizens. Reuters was able to verify
the vessel by the design and name of the bow that matched file imagery of the
Cenk T vessel. “We reiterate the need for an arrangement whereby, in order to
prevent escalation in the Black Sea, attacks targeting navigational safety as
well as the parties’ energy and port infrastructure are suspended,” the
ministry’s statement said. The three large Black Sea ports in the Odesa region
are a key economic artery for Ukraine, which is a major commodities exporter. In
addition to the so-called “shadow fleet” tankers, Kyiv has ramped up pressure on
Moscow by hitting targets in the Caspian Sea this week, including vessels
allegedly carrying military equipment and a major oil rig.
Ukraine, US, Europe still seeking common ground in peace
talks, French official says
Reuters/13 December ,2025
Ukraine, the United States and European powers are still working to find a joint
position that would outline the contours of a peace deal, including security
guarantees for Kyiv, that could be taken to Russia, a French presidency official
said on Friday. “Our goal is to have a common
foundation that is solid for negotiation. This common ground must unite
Ukrainians, Americans and Europeans,” the official told reporters in a briefing.
“It should allow us, together, to make a negotiating offer, a solid, lasting
peace offer that respects international law and Ukraine’s sovereign interests,
an offer that American negotiators are willing to bring to the Russians.” The
official said there was no joint document yet, but all sides would carry on
negotiations in the coming days through various calls and meetings. He did not
say whether Washington had set a deadline. Kyiv is under pressure from the White
House to secure a quick peace but is pushing back on a U.S.-backed plan proposed
last month that many see as favorable to Moscow. Britain, France and Germany,
along with other European partners and Ukraine, have been working frantically in
the last few weeks to refine the original US proposals that envisaged Kyiv
giving up swathes of its territory to Moscow, abandoning its ambition to join
NATO and accepting limits on the size of its armed forces. The French official
said the talks aimed at narrowing differences with the United States and
centered on territory and potential security guarantees for Ukraine once there
is a peace accord. Those discussions include the possibility of a NATO Article-5
type clause involving Washington that would seek to reassure Kyiv in case it was
once again attacked by Russia, the official said. The Europeans have also faced
pressure in recent weeks with some American proposals touching on elements that
concern NATO and the European Union, including suggestions on fast-tracking
Ukraine’s accession to the bloc. “The European perspective of Ukraine is clear
and it’s a realistic perspective,” the official said. “That is what we are
committed to and it is up to the Europeans and the Ukrainians to agree on how to
proceed.”
Trump says US willing to help with Ukraine’s security in
peace deal with Russia
Bloomberg/12 December /2025
President Donald Trump said the US would be willing to contribute assistance to
Ukraine as part of a security agreement to end the war with Russia, but
continued to express frustration with the pace of talks.“Yeah, we would help,”
Trump told reporters Thursday in the Oval Office. “We would help with security,
because it’s, I think, a necessary factor in getting it done.”Still, he
expressed disappointment that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had not more
readily signed off on an American peace plan, adding to pressure on officials in
Kyiv who pushed back on an earlier US proposal seen as too accommodating to
Moscow. “I thought that we were very close with Russia to having a deal. I
thought we were very close with Ukraine having a deal, in fact, other than
President Zelenskyy,” Trump said. His comments came after his spokeswoman
described him as “extremely frustrated with both sides of this war” and “sick of
meetings just for the sake of meeting.” “He doesn’t want any more talk. He wants
action,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on
Thursday. Leavitt was noncommittal on whether the US would send anyone to a
meeting over the weekend between Ukraine and several European nations on the
latest US offer, which is a slimmed-down version of a previous 28-point plan
that would have demanded massive concessions from Ukraine. Trump said his
interest was in getting the conflict “settled.”“We’ll be attending the meeting
on Saturday in Europe if we think there’s a good chance,” Trump said. “And we
don’t want to waste a lot of time. We think it’s negative.”Earlier Thursday,
Zelenskyy floated the prospect of allowing Ukrainians to vote on whether to hand
the Donbas region to Russia. The Kremlin has insisted that Ukraine withdraw its
forces from the eastern territories, which include areas of the Donetsk and
Luhansk regions that the Russian military has failed to capture in its nearly
four-year invasion. “It’s not the easiest thing,” Trump said. “It’s sort of like
a complex real estate deal times one thousand, right?”The US has dramatically
scaled back direct military aid for Ukraine under Trump, instead favoring a
system under which other NATO allies could purchase American armaments for Kyiv.
While Washington has previously suggested it could provide intelligence or air
support for Ukraine under a deal, Trump on Thursday did not specify what type of
security guarantees he was willing to make. The package has been the subject of
negotiations between White House and Ukrainian officials in recent days.
Zelenskyy had earlier submitted a new version of a peace plan to the White
House, following discussions with key European partners this week. The 20-point
draft is a “fundamental document” to end the war, Zelenskyy said. Ukrainian
territory is at the center of running discussions among Washington, Kyiv and
Moscow as negotiators inch toward a potential agreement to end the war.
Zelenskyy’s challenge is that his nation’s armed forces face severe manpower
shortages, and Russia continues to make slow but steady land gains, giving that
country’s leader, Vladimir Putin, little incentive to end the invasion.
Turkey says no change in Russian S-400s amid US talks on
F-35s
Reuters/12 December/2025
Turkey and the United States are discussing the US sanctions and obstacles to
Ankara rejoining the F-35 jet program but nothing has changed with respect to
its possession of Russian S-400 air defenses, the defense ministry said on
Friday. The NATO allies have been at loggerheads since 2020 when Washington
removed Ankara from Lockheed Martin’s fighter jet program and imposed sanctions
over Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400s, which Washington calls a security
threat. Turkey says that move was unjust. Both sides
have said they hope the CAATSA sanctions and US laws can be overcome in US
President Donald Trump’s second term so that Turkey can both buy the jets and
return to the manufacturing program. US Ambassador to
Ankara Tom Barrack said on Wednesday that discussions continue on the issue, but
noted US law would not permit Turkey to operate or possess the S-400 system if
it wants to return to the F-35 program. Addressing Barrack’s comments at a press
briefing, the Turkish defense ministry said: “There have been no new
developments regarding the S-400 air defense systems, which has been put on the
agenda in recent days.”Turkey’s diplomatic discussions with the US continue “on
lifting sanctions and obstacles to the F-35 procurement and re-admitting our
country to the program,” it said. “Addressing the process regarding the F-35
project within the spirit of alliance, through mutual dialogue and constructive
consultation, will contribute positively to bilateral relations,” the ministry
added. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters last week he believed Turkey
and the US would find a way to remove American sanctions “very soon.”Washington
says the S-400s pose a threat to its F-35 fighter jets and to NATO’s broader
defense systems. Turkey rejects that and says the S-400s will not be integrated
into NATO.
Joint Saudi-Emirate delegation in Aden for talks after STC takeover
Reuters/13 December/2025
A joint Saudi-Emirati military delegation arrived in Aden to discuss measures
aimed at defusing tensions in southern Yemen days after the Southern
Transitional Council claimed broad control across the south, a government source
told Reuters on Friday.
The Southern Transitional Council said the takeover included the eastern
provinces of Hadhramaut and al-Mahra, and that the group is present in all
eastern provinces of south Yemen, including Aden, the base of the
internationally recognized government.
Discussions to be held by the delegation in Aden will address ways to rectify
recent unilateral actions, including the withdrawal of any forces brought in
from outside the eastern provinces, a source in the presidential office told the
state news agency SABA.
UK king shares ‘good news’ that cancer treatment will be reduced in 2026
AFP/13 December/2025
Britain’s King Charles III, who has broken royal taboos to talk openly about
battling cancer, Friday revealed the “good news” that his treatment will be
pared back next year. In a rare and “personal message” filmed for an annual TV
fundraising campaign for cancer research, the monarch also urged Britons to take
advantage of UK screening programs. “Today I am able to share with you the good
news that thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to
‘doctors’ orders,’ my own schedule of cancer treatment can be reduced in the new
year,” Charles said.
The 77-year-old king announced in February 2024 that he had been diagnosed with
an undisclosed type of cancer the previous month. “I know from my own experience
that a cancer diagnosis can feel overwhelming,” the king acknowledged in his
video message shown on Channel 4 television as part of the national Stand Up To
Cancer campaign. “Yet I also know that early detection is the key that can
transform treatment journeys, giving invaluable time to medical teams – and, to
their patients, the precious gift of hope.”Charles did not reveal what kind of
cancer he is being treated for, nor did he specify what kind of treatment he is
receiving. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a post on X that “early cancer
screening saves lives.”He added that speaking “for the entire country” he was
“glad” that Charles’s treatment will be reduced in the new year. The king said
he had been deeply troubled to learn that “at least nine million people in our
country are not up to date with the cancer screenings available to them.” “That
is at least nine million opportunities for early diagnosis being missed,” he
stressed, as he also praised “advances” in cancer treatments and care. He
highlighted how when “bowel cancer is caught at the earliest stage, around nine
in 10 people survive for at least five years. When diagnosed late, that falls to
just one in 10.”Royal sources said it should not be assumed the king was being
treated for bowel cancer. The king’s willingness to talk about his illness is a
marked departure from the reign of his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II,
whose health was for decades a closely-guarded secret. Fundraisers and celebrity
challenges have been taking place throughout the week leading up to Friday’s
show. Stand Up To Cancer says to date it has raised more than £113 million ($151
million) to aid research into more than 20 different types of cancer.
Syria welcomes US House vote to end ‘Caesar Act’ sanctions
Arab News/December 12, 2025
LONDON: A vote by the US House of Representatives in favor of ending tough
sanctions on Syria was welcomed by Damascus on Thursday as a “pivotal
moment.”The “Caesar Act” sanctions regime was imposed in 2020 against former
President Bashar Assad’s government over the human-rights abuses carried out
during the civil war.The move to repeal the sanctions, seen as a crucial step
for the Syrian Arab Republic’s economic recovery, is contained in a wide-ranging
defense bill that the lower house of Congress backed on Thursday. The Syrian
Foreign Ministry said the vote “paves the way for a broader economic recovery
and the return of opportunities long denied to Syrians.” The ministry described
it as a first step toward improving trade flows, and increasing the availability
of essential goods, and medical supplies.
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources
published
on
December 12-13/2025
Chat
Control: The EU's Plan to Read Your Messages — All of Them
Drieu Godefridi/Gatestone Institute/December 12/2025
The real issue appears to be the government's desire to control, regulate,
police and monitor European citizens down to their smallest gesture.
Are you texting your child or perhaps your bank? Your message is scanned.
Sending a prompt to ChatGPT? Scanned.
Communications between lawyers and their clients will be scanned, as will
WhatsApp messages with your doctor about erectile dysfunction problems or
suspected cancer. By definition, nothing escapes its doting supervision.
Everything is suspect. You are suspect.
Nextcloud, a privacy and encryption advocacy organization, warns that the
proposed regulation poses "a fatal threat to our democracies". It creates an
infrastructure capable of spying on private conversations on a massive scale,
making them accessible with a single click to even the most inconsequential
civil servant.
This is yet another example of regulatory imperialism characteristic of the
incompetent people who run the EU today.
Are you texting your child or perhaps your bank? Your message is scanned.
Sending a prompt to ChatGPT? Scanned. Send a photo of your baby to a relative,
and the algorithm may report you to the authorities as what it believes you are
— a pedophile. A letter from the police is ready to be dispatched, summoning you
to explain the "child pornography" you are allegedly circulating. (AI image
generated by OpenAI)
In Europe, the controversy surrounding what is popularly known as the "Chat
Control" project — proposed EU regulation officially aimed at combating child
sexual abuse material — has, for months, been crystallizing massive opposition
on both technical and civic fronts.
The core principles of the legislation are clear:
"Detection software would be embedded in the messaging app or the operating
system to scan chat content and automatically forward any material flagged as
prohibited to law enforcement agencies."
The automatic scan of private content (texts, images, videos) sent through
messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram, or prompts sent to AI
platforms (e.g. ChatGPT) would take place "client-side," before its encryption,
meaning directly on your phone, tablet or computer. Welcome to 1984. In the
first proposal for a Chat Control project in 2022, such scanning was mandatory.
In the current proposal, it is optional — but strongly recommended.
Whenever there is a desire to expand control over European citizens, "terrorism"
or pedophilia is invoked. It is a clever tactic: who would want to be perceived
as supporting terrorists or sympathizing with pedophiles?
Of course, however, that does not seem to be the regulation's true objective.
The real issue appears to be the government's desire to control, regulate,
police and monitor European citizens down to their smallest gesture.
The unelected, untransparent and unaccountable EU does not care about your
freedom; it fights against it (such as here and here).
Why Many Experts Consider Automatic Detection Dangerous
Major Technical Limitations
Some of Europe's most renowned researchers in cybersecurity and privacy have
signed an open letter warning that the expansion of "client-side scanning"
(scanning content on the user's device) paves the way for mass surveillance.
This is an understatement: scanning the communications of tens of millions of
users is, by definition, mass surveillance.
The EU's initial proposal required scanning all messages in the EU — without
exception. Faced with overwhelming opposition, the EU returned with a text that
merely allows — without mandating — exactly the same practice. Are you texting
your child or perhaps your bank? Your message is scanned. Sending a prompt to
ChatGPT? Scanned. Your life is an uninterrupted scan, and anything you type that
is deemed by the monitoring software as "prohibited" is forwarded to law
enforcement authorities.
100% transparency; 100% control: the leitmotif of every totalitarian project
since the 20th century.
An academic study, Bugs in Our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning,
warned of the dangers inherent in this approach. According to its Cornell
University authors, the scanning "does not effectively prevent crime or protect
privacy". The study demonstrates that such a system could be circumvented,
misused, or overwhelmed by false positives, and would create new security
vulnerabilities.
Apparently these algorithms cannot reliably differentiate between innocent
exchanges and illegal behavior. This problem is particularly true for written
conversations, where context, irony, sarcasm or family quirks can easily lead to
misinterpretation. Consider, for instance, a newborn baby, often naked. Send a
photo of your baby to a relative, and the algorithm may report you to the
authorities as what it believes you are — a pedophile. A letter from the police
is ready to be dispatched, summoning you to explain the "child pornography" you
are allegedly circulating.
Massive False Positives — and Their Consequences
According to the writers of the aforementioned open letter, this inability to
correctly analyze communications could easily entrap the participants in
billions of legitimate private exchanges in a vast net.
I happen to be the happy father of an 18-month-old girl. For professional
reasons, her mother and I do not always live together, and we constantly
exchange photos of our daughter — up to ten times a day. All it would take is
for an algorithm to flag a single image, just once, for us to become suspects,
quietly entering countless criminal databases, justifying surveillance, official
intervention, and more. Even East Germany's Stasi never dreamed of such power.
This liability for false positives has already been observed in existing
reporting systems: holiday photos, such as children playing on a beach, are
automatically flagged, triggering unjustified procedures, investigations, or
leaks exposing the private lives of innocent people. These cases illustrate the
jeopardy of widespread Orwellian policing: the presumption of guilt.
A Breach of Encryption — and of Overall Security
A central objection raised by privacy advocates and secure messaging services —
WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and others — is that scanning fundamentally
undermines end-to-end encryption. In reality, it abolishes it.
What is the point of encrypting something that is already being spied on? This
proposed EU regulation effectively turns any phone or computer into an
instrument of surveillance and intrusion. "Siri, tell me: how many civil
servants are reading our conversations?" Just preventively, of course: to fight
Evil.
Some companies, such as Signal, are threatening to leave the EU rather than
compromise encryption. It takes far more, however, to move the European
Commission: after all, the European economy is flourishing so "brilliantly" that
it can easily afford to chase away the world's best companies.
The latest version of the draft regulation — put forward by the socialist Danish
EU presidency — transforms the scanning requirement into a "voluntary option",
allowing a political agreement between member states. This reversal is merely a
rapid cosmetic fix: the proposal maintains all the mechanisms that, in practice,
establish widespread, arbitrary and massive control. It is, essentially, a
totalitarian structure.
Nextcloud, a privacy and encryption advocacy organization, warns that the
proposed regulation poses "a fatal threat to our democracies". It creates an
infrastructure capable of spying on private conversations on a massive scale,
making them accessible with a single click to even the most inconsequential
civil servant.
Some criticisms of the proposed regulation point to violations of the secrecy of
correspondence, fundamental freedoms and the right to a fair trial.
Communications between lawyers and their clients will be scanned, as will
WhatsApp messages with your doctor about erectile dysfunction problems or
suspected cancer. By definition, nothing escapes its doting supervision.
Everything is suspect. You are suspect.
Unfortunately, none of these objections is likely to sway the European
Commission's refined minds. Ideologues occasionally have a way of being
impervious to reality, reason or any values other than their own. In the
corridors of the EU, control appears to be the dominant value. All these people
hear is force.
This may be precisely what awaits us.
Monstrous Regulation
As most of the targeted internet and technology service providers are American,
Chat Control, even in its new hypocritical "Stasi-lite" guise, will inevitably
lead to confrontation with the U.S. government. Chat Control would apply not
only to communications originating in Europe and destined for Europe, but also
to EU member-state citizens on American soil as well as to communications from
anywhere in the world to Europe.
In short, messaging and AI platforms would soon inevitably be forced to extend
Chat Control to all communications. This is yet another example of regulatory
imperialism characteristic of the incompetent people who run the EU today.
Do we really believe Americans will tolerate this new surge of repression from a
decadent continent trampling on the principles that once made its civilization
great?
**Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain),
philosopher (University Saint-Louis, University of Louvain) and PhD in legal
theory (Paris IV-Sorbonne). He is an entrepreneur, CEO of a European private
education group and director of PAN Medias Group. He is the author of The Green
Reich (2020).
© 2025 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Israel awaits return of last hostage, next phase of Gaza ceasefire under
discussion
Seth J. Frantzman/FDD's Long War Journal/December 12/2025
Israel is awaiting the return of the remains of the last hostage still held in
Gaza as officials in the Middle East and the US continue to negotiate how the
ceasefire in the territory will progress to the next phase.
“A Friday afternoon gathering for Ran Gvili, the fallen police officer
whose body is the last one remaining in Gaza, will take place for the second
week in a row at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square,” The Times of Israel reported on
December 11. Gvili’s remains are believed to be held by Palestinian Islamic
Jihad (PIJ), the report added. The return of all the
hostages, living and deceased, was a key part of the US-backed ceasefire deal
that Israel and Hamas agreed to in early October. After all the hostages are
returned, the ceasefire is expected to move to a new phase that may include the
deployment of an international force in Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas.
However, there are hurdles to the next phase, according to reports.
“US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he will announce the members
of the Board of Peace overseeing the postwar management of Gaza early next year,
in the latest sign the effort is stalling,” The Times of Israel reported on
December 11. Discussions are ongoing about who will serve on the Board of Peace,
and The Guardian noted on December 8 that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
had been dropped from consideration. The White House
is also moving forward with plans for the international force that is expected
to be deployed to Gaza. “The Trump administration is planning to appoint an
American two-star general to command the International Stabilization Force (ISF)
in Gaza, according to two US officials and two Israeli officials,” Axios noted
on December 11. The report added that “two Israeli officials said UN Ambassador
Mike Waltz, who visited Israel this week, told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and other officials that the Trump administration is going to lead the ISF and
appoint a two-star general as its commander.” Azerbaijan, Turkey, Indonesia, and
Egypt have reportedly expressed interest in joining the force.
Waltz met with Israeli officials during his visit. In a meeting with Israeli
President Isaac Herzog, Waltz and Herzog discussed the implementation of the
ceasefire plan.
“We hope that the process will not take too long, because in the Middle East, if
you wait for too long, then the vacuum fills in, and the rogue elements don’t
rest for a moment,” Herzog said. “What has been clear,
and I want to be clear, is Hamas has to go. President Trump has been clear,
that’s going to happen the easy way or the hard way, but there will not be any
more Hamas,” Waltz added. The Israel Defense Forces
(IDF) continues to face challenges in administering the roughly half of the
territory it controls and is demarcated by the “Yellow Line.” On December 10,
the IDF noted that several Israeli civilians entered Gaza and it handed them
over to the Israeli police. “The IDF emphasizes that any entry into a combat
zone is prohibited,” the Israeli military said. In addition, the IDF said that
Israeli troops had identified two terrorists crossing the Yellow Line, and one
of the interlopers was eliminated. In a separate incident on December 7, the IDF
said that it had eliminated a suspected terrorist.
On December 7, the IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir visited Israeli troops in Gaza
and conducted a situational assessment with the head of IDF Southern Command,
Major General Yaniv Asor, and the head of the 252nd Division, Brigadier General
Yehuda Wagen. Zamir traveled to several sectors in northern Gaza, including Beit
Hanoun and Jabaliya. “We are operating to thwart and remove threats in all
arenas. We will not tolerate threats against our troops, and we will respond to
any attempt,” Zamir said, adding, “We will not allow Hamas to reestablish
itself. We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip, and
we will remain on those defense lines. The Yellow Line is a new border line —
serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of
operational activity.”
**Reporting from Israel, Seth J. Frantzman is an adjunct fellow at FDD and a
contributor to FDD’s Long War Journal. He is the senior Middle East
correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post, and author of The October 7
War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza (2024).
US deploys carrier, issues airspace warning, seizes oil tanker in latest
Caribbean escalations
Samuel Ben-Ur/FDD's Long War Journal/December 12/2025
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/12/us-deploys-carrier-issues-airspace-warning-seizes-oil-tanker-in-latest-caribbean-escalations.php
Washington continued ramping up its military deployment near Venezuela under
Operation Southern Spear, the anti-drug trafficking campaign announced by US
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on November 13. The deployment now includes the US
Navy’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, over a dozen warships,
and more than 15,000 US personnel, building upon what was already the region’s
largest American naval presence since 1962. The Ford strike group, composed of
the carrier and three destroyers supported by an Air Force B-52 bomber wing,
provides US planners with the ability to conduct rapid, long-range strike
packages against targets inside Venezuela if authorized. As the deployment
expanded, US President Donald Trump directly contacted Venezuelan President
Nicolas Maduro and offered safe passage out of Venezuela if Maduro left power
“right away.” In response, Maduro reportedly demanded total amnesty for himself
and other Venezuelan officials and sanctions relief, which Washington rejected.
Publicly, Maduro dismissed the US buildup as a plan to “appropriate
Venezuela’s oil reserves […] through the lethal use of military force.”
France and the UK challenge the legality of US actions
Tensions with European allies have grown after US forces sank several high-speed
boats in the Caribbean, killing dozens of alleged drug traffickers. French
Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned that the strikes “violate international
law.”
In mid-November, London reportedly suspended certain intelligence-sharing with
the United States related to suspected drug-smuggling vessels. While both the
Pentagon and British officials declined to comment, Secretary of State Marco
Rubio decried the reports as “a false story.” US officials have rejected the
criticism from European officials, insisting that US interdictions were lawful
and aimed at reducing cocaine flows that also affect Europe. Nevertheless, by
mid-November, several governments, including France, the UK, the Netherlands,
and Canada, were reviewing their cooperation with the US to prevent potential
“complicity” in unlawful killings.
US issues NOTAM over Venezuelan airspace
The US-Venezuela standoff widened on November 21 when the US Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) issued a Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) warning that civil
aircraft face a “potentially hazardous situation” when flying over Venezuela.
The FAA cited increased military activity and required US airlines to provide 72
hours’ notice before entering Venezuelan airspace. American Airlines and United
Airlines canceled flights in Venezuela shortly after the notice. Caracas
denounced the FAA warning as illegitimate and outside of US jurisdiction. Days
later, on November 27, Venezuela’s civil aviation authority revoked the
operating permits of six foreign airlines—TAP, Iberia, Avianca, LATAM Colombia,
Turkish Airlines, and Gol—after they suspended service. Venezuelan authorities
said these airlines had “joined actions of state terrorism promoted by the
United States.”
Intensifying rhetoric from both governments
On November 29, Trump wrote on Truth Social that airspace “above and surrounding
Venezuela” should be considered “closed in its entirety” to “Pilots, Drug
Dealers, and Human Traffickers.” The remark raised questions about possible US
airstrikes or the enforcement of a no-fly zone. Caracas condemned the message as
a “colonialist threat.” President Trump later downplayed the comment when
questioned by reporters, stating, “Don’t read anything into it.” Nonetheless,
Trump also reportedly said that ground operations in Venezuela could begin “very
soon” to halt drug trafficking at its source. Maduro responded to increasing US
rhetoric at rallies, pledging “absolute loyalty” to the Venezuelan people and
dancing to a remix of one of his speeches in which he said, “Neither a slave’s
peace nor the peace of colonies,” a rejection of US intervention and influence.
Machado’s covert escape to accept the Nobel Peace Prize
María Corina Machado—the Venezuelan opposition leader who has been living in
hiding since 2024 to avoid arrest—was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her
pro-democracy work on October 10. Maduro’s government subsequently warned that
Machado would be considered a fugitive if she attempted to leave the country due
to the numerous treason charges she faces from the Maduro-controlled justice
system. Machado fled Venezuela clandestinely on
December 9. With US assistance, she reportedly departed from a coastal hideout
by boat, traveled to Curaçao, and boarded a private aircraft bound for Norway.
“Many people risked their lives to make this possible,” Machado told Nobel
organizers. Machado ultimately missed the ceremony due
to weather delays; her daughter accepted the prize on her behalf in Oslo.
US seizes oil tanker off Venezuelan coast
Tensions escalated further on December 10 when Trump announced that US forces
had seized a large oil tanker near Venezuela’s coast. The operation, led by the
US Coast Guard with Navy support, reportedly targeted the MT Skipper, a
Guyana-flagged supertanker that US Attorney General Pam Bondi said was a “crude
oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela to Iran.”
The seizure, which directly targets Venezuela’s chief revenue source, is
the first such interdiction since the US buildup in the Caribbean began this
year. Oil prices rose roughly 0.4 percent in the immediate aftermath of the
incident. Washington argued that the move would restrict funds available to
Maduro’s government, and Caracas called the interdiction an act of
“international piracy.”
**Samuel Ben-Ur is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies.
From ‘Victory Only’ to Checkmate: Sudan’s Islamists Face Global Rejection
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/FDD-Insight/December 12/2025
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait — has formally endorsed the
U.S.-led vision for ending Sudan’s devastating civil war, dealing a severe
diplomatic blow to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), its commander General Abdel
Fattah al-Burhan, and the Islamist factions that prop up his regime.
At its summit last week, the GCC explicitly backed “a political
transition through the establishment of a civilian government that excludes
extremist groups and entities that have committed crimes against the Sudanese
people.”In the context of Sudan, “extremist groups” unmistakably refers to the
Islamist parties — primarily the remnants of Omar al-Bashir’s regime that was
overthrown in the 2019 popular revolution — and the various armed factions and
political networks that have aligned themselves with the SAF since the war
began. The phrase “entities that have committed crimes against the Sudanese
people” is equally clear: it targets the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the
paramilitary group originally created by Bashir and the SAF in 2013 from the
Janjaweed militias responsible for genocide in Darfur two decades ago. On
Tuesday, the Department of Treasury sanctioned a “transnational network
recruiting Columbians to fight in Sudan’s civil war” as part of the RSF.
By simultaneously condemning both the SAF-led Islamist coalition and the
RSF, while calling for an immediate ceasefire followed by a transition to a
civilian government that excludes both the army and the militia, the GCC has
thrown its weight behind the framework first articulated in September by the
Quad — comprising of the United States, Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
The SAF’s reaction to the peace plan has been predictably hostile. Ever since
the Quad roadmap was announced, in September, General Burhan and his allies have
rejected any solution that would strip the military and its Islamist allies of
power. Even when Burhan dispatched a delegation to Washington for indirect talks
— ostensibly to avoid appearing completely intransigent — SAF forces refused to
stop the war. Burhan and the Islamists have insisted that the only acceptable
outcome is the total surrender and dissolution of the RSF.
The battlefield reality, however, has moved decisively against Burhan and the
Islamists. What began in April 2023 as an SAF attempt to crush the RSF in
Khartoum has turned into a protracted humiliation for the regular army. After
initial gains, the SAF has suffered a string of crushing defeats. In October
2025, the RSF captured Bara, capital of North Kordofan. In November, after a
brutal 500-day siege, the RSF captured El-Fasher, the last major SAF stronghold
in Darfur. Days later, the RSF announced the seizure of Babnusa, a strategic hub
in West Kordofan. With each loss, the army’s supply lines are threatened, its
morale collapses further, and its dependence on Islamist militias grows more
desperate.
Facing military reversal and mounting diplomatic isolation, Burhan and the
Islamists have fallen back on defiance laced with conspiracy theories. Their
slogan “bal wa bas”— roughly “only by the sword, nothing else” — has become the
rallying cry of a coalition that promises total victory even as it loses
province after province. Unable to offer a credible path to battlefield success,
the Islamists have instead redirected their propaganda fire outward, accusing
the UAE, Israel, the Quad, and most recently U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of
Africa and Sudan, Boulos Massad, of waging a neo-colonial plot to dismember
Sudan and hand it to “Zionists” and “secular liberals.”General Burhan and the
Islamist old guard now face a stark choice: accept a negotiated exit that
preserves some of their wealth and liberty in exchange for handing power to
civilians, or cling to the illusion of total victory until the RSF — or sheer
state collapse — removes them by force. The GCC’s
endorsement of the Quad framework, coming on top of near-universal international
condemnation, has stripped away the last pretense of legitimacy. The era when
Sudan’s generals and clerics could play great powers against each other is over.
Whether Burhan recognizes this before Khartoum falls to the RSF a second time,
or whether Sudan must first endure even greater bloodshed, will determine not
only his fate but that of an entire nation exhausted by decades of militarism
and ideological fanaticism. The world has drawn a line; Sudan’s Islamists and
their military protector now stand almost entirely on the wrong side of it.
**Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe
HERE. Follow Hussain on X @hahussain. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington,
DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on foreign policy and national
security.
A Free Venezuela Elevates U.S. Energy Security
Saeed Ghasseminejad/Real Clear World/December 12/2025
https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2025/12/11/a_free_venezuela_elevates_us_energy_security_1152733.html
If the Maduro regime were to fall tomorrow, the immediate applause in Washington
would be for the restoration of democracy. But in Houston, the reaction would be
a scramble for logistics. For over a decade, the United States has celebrated
its status as an energy superpower, largely thanks to the shale revolution. Yet,
beneath this “energy dominance” lies a persistent structural vulnerability: a
mismatch between what we produce and what we process. We are drowning in light,
sweet crude from the Permian Basin, while our massive Gulf Coast refinery
complex, engineered decades ago, is starving for heavy, sour crude. A transition
to a pro-U.S. government in Caracas would represent far more than a diplomatic
victory. It could provide a crucial correction to balance the American oil
portfolio, securing a technical, economic, and geopolitical triumph that cements
U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere for decades.
Solving the Heavy Oil “Cliff”
The most immediate benefit is a resolution to the U.S. refining sector’s looming
supply crunch. A significant share of U.S. refineries, especially in the Gulf
Coast, operate more efficiently when fed heavy crude. For years, U.S. energy
security relied on a “heavy oil triad”: domestic production, imports from
Canada, and imports from Mexico. That triad is broken. Mexico, once our most
reliable supplier of heavy Maya crude, has seen its production collapse and has
slashed exports to feed its own domestic refineries. This has left the U.S.
dangerously reliant on a single lifeline: Canada. While Canada is a staunch
ally, depending on a single source for millions of barrels of essential
feedstock deprives U.S. refiners of leverage and exposes the Gulf Coast to
pipeline bottlenecks. Venezuela is the best option with the reserves to backfill
the hole left by Mexico and reduce US reliance on Canada. Even now, Chevron is
exporting a limited amount of Venezuelan oil to the US under a license.
Restoring a transparent, short-haul flow from the Caribbean provides U.S.
refiners with a necessary “second lung,” restoring market competition and
lowering the cost of producing fuel and other oil products for American
consumers.
Evicting the Dragon and Isolating the Mullahs
The geopolitical dividends are equally stark. Currently, Venezuela serves as a
forward operating base for America’s adversaries. The regime survives by
shipping oil to China via “dark fleets”, tankers that operate without
transponders to evade Western banking and insurance systems. This trade provides
Beijing with discounted energy and allows it to project power into the
Caribbean. A pro-U.S. government would reverse this flow, redirecting exports
from opaque, state-to-state deals with China to transparent, market-rate sales
in the West. This forces Beijing to replace cheap Venezuelan barrels with more
expensive crude from the open market (likely from Iraq or Saudi Arabia),
increasing its energy insecurity. Furthermore, a new regime in Caracas would
sever ties with Iran. Tehran uses Venezuela as a base for expanding its jihadi
influence in America’s backyard. A U.S.-aligned Caracas would kick the Iranian
agents out, making the southern border and the homeland more secure.
The Great Energy Swap: A Symbiosis, Not a Threat
Skeptics may warn that a flood of Venezuelan oil could crash prices and bankrupt
U.S. shale producers. This fear is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of
physics. A barrel of Venezuelan oil does not replace a barrel of U.S. shale oil;
it complements it. Venezuela’s extra-heavy crude is too thick to flow through
pipelines on its own. To move it from the field to the port, it must be diluted
with a thinner hydrocarbon. The best substance for this job is naphtha, a
byproduct of U.S. shale drilling. The United States used to be the top exporter
of naphtha to Venezuela. Currently, Venezuela imports naphtha from Russia
Under a pro-U.S. administration, we would see the emergence of a “closed-loop”
trade, U.S. shale producers can export light naphtha to Venezuela (creating a
new market for their byproduct). Venezuela can use it to dilute its heavy crude,
which is then shipped back to the U.S. Gulf Coast. American refiners will
separate the naphtha for reuse and process the heavy crude.
Far from killing U.S. shale, a revived Venezuela becomes a massive new customer
for American light products, creating a symbiotic relationship that stabilizes
the Permian Basin rather than undermining it.
The Reconstruction Bonanza
Economically, the stabilization of Venezuela offers a windfall for the U.S.
service sector. After years of mismanagement, Venezuela’s energy infrastructure
is in ruins. The state-run PDVSA cannot fix it; nor can the Russians or Chinese,
whose technology lags behind Western standards.
Rehabilitating the massive upgraders in the Orinoco Belt requires the capital
and technical wizardry that U.S. supermajors and service firms will be in the
best position to provide at scale. By leveraging debt restructuring and
international aid packages, Washington can ensure that American firms are the
partners of choice for this reconstruction. This creates a multi-year boom for
the U.S. energy service sector, effectively exporting American engineering to
rebuild a neighbor.
The timeline for meaningful production increases should not be underestimated.
Venezuela’s energy infrastructure has suffered from years of deferred
maintenance and capital starvation. Even with Western investment, returning to
pre-2015 production levels could take years and require tens of billions in
capital investment.
The Hemispheric Fortress
Ultimately, a pro-U.S. Venezuela allows for the creation of a “Fortress
Americas” energy market. By integrating the output of Canada (the current heavy
oil king), the U.S. (the light oil king), and a revived Venezuela (the holder of
the world’s largest heavy and super heavy reserves), the Western Hemisphere can
achieve a level of energy independence that insulates it from the volatility of
the MENA and Eurasia. We have spent the last decade
focusing on producing more. The next decade must be about integrating what we
have. A free Venezuela doesn’t just lower gas prices; it brings the hemisphere’s
largest reserves back into the fold of the dollar-denominated, U.S.-led order.
That is a prize worth drilling for.
**Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior adviser for Iran and financial economics at
FDD, specializing in Iran’s economy, financial markets, sanctions, and illicit
finance. Follow Saeed on X @SGhasseminejad.
Psychological wounds of the
Syrian people
Mamdouh AlMuhaini/English.Alarabiya/12 December/2025
The image of the drowned Syrian child Alan Kurdi once shook the world. When you
see it, you cannot help but ask: Why did this little innocent child have to die
this way, face down in the cold sand of the sea? Then came the image of another
child, Omran, frozen in fear after a bombing, his face smeared with blood.
Moments like these make you question the meaning and logic of life itself. Yet
justice has, by God’s will, taken its course in the end. Children once displaced
are now in their homeland, while Assad is in exile, a fugitive, isolated in his
luxurious apartment.
When some of these tormented children told their stories during the celebration
marking Assad’s fall and moved those present to tears, I felt the sheer weight
of pain and the deep scars etched into the Syrian psyche. Long years of brutal
police rule leave behind wounds that require many years to heal. This does not
mean that our Arab countries are havens of freedom. But police states like the
Assad regime, which crush human dignity, impoverish people, torture them, and
lack even the most basic standards of justice and ethics, cannot endure. They
will always be a source of unrest, chaos, and political blackmail. Their
departure benefits successful states seeking stability and a focus on
development. The task facing Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is pivotal,
historic, and far from easy. When those tearful children embraced him, they saw
in him the man capable of freeing them from those dark memories and deep pains.
Sincere and honest statesmen are the ones able to close this dark chapter of
Syrian history. They must prove their authority and preserve the unity of their
country against those seeking to tear it apart. They must rebuild it anew,
attract competence while pushing aside hypocrites and fighting corruption, earn
the trust of the anxious and bring together those who differ, stand up to
saboteurs, and above all ensure the healing of these deep wounds and lasting
scars.
It is a difficult and delicate mission. Strength is required, because weakness
invites evildoers to strike. Yet excessive force will reopen deep psychological
wounds. The primary duty of a statesman is to preserve the integrity of the
nation and prevent it from fragmentation and division, while at the same time
turning it into a successful state and a homeland for all, across races,
religions, and cultures. We are reminded that US President Abraham Lincoln spent
most of his presidency consumed by civil war because he refused to allow his
country to fracture and vanish forever. Had he not done so, we would not know
the strong America we know today. It would have splintered into scattered mini
states. As for the political construction of a system of governance, political
scientist Samuel Huntington offers a view I find logical. Building democracy is
not tied to modernization alone, but to the development of institutions and
culture. Even if a state succeeds economically, it will fail to transition to
democracy if it lacks a mature political structure and stable governing
institutions. How much more complex, then, if the state is poor. This explains
the faltering experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, where democracy was imposed
from the top down, not built from the bottom up. It did not take deep root
within society. It was enforced by force and became merely formal. Without a
strong state, institutions, rule of law, accountability, and a culture built
over long periods with patient, gradual effort, and according to Syria’s own
rhythm alone, any democracy born by coercion will be born ill. After decades of
hardship and deep pain, Syria deserves a second chance.
Selected Face Book & X tweets
for
/December 12,
2025
Michel Hajji Georgiou
Twenty years ago, Gebran Tuéni was literally sprayed in an
ambushed car. His assassins of the Damascus-Tehran axis, together with their
Lebanese accomplices, had placed him on the black list of "dangerous
personalities" to be eliminated, as they managed, in a few years, to reconstruct
a certain Lebanese idea of a plural and coherent front, guaranteeing sovereignty
and security. freedom. A compact front, capable of transcending the divisions
inherited from the civil war and the sectarian compartments on which the axis
has been waling for decades to better divide the Lebanese and stand up, doing
so, as the authority to settle the conflicts he created himself, according to
the classic logic of the firefighter-pyromaniac (... ) My tribute to the memory
of Gebran Tuéni, twenty years after his assassination, in French, English,
Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese.
Here is the link to French:
https://levanttime.com/.../7f05aefb-a85c-4b1b-83d0...
@followers
@highlight
@everyone