English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For  December 27/2025
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today

You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?
Saint Matthew 23/29-39/24,1-2: “‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation. ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’ As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 26-27/2025
Dear Family members & Friends...Merry Christmas/Elias Bejjani/December 25/2025
Fear of Saying “Merry Christmas” is a Shame Upon the Peoples, Institutions, and Nations of the Secular West/Elias Bejjani/December 24/2025
Video-Link Commentary by Goldie Ghamari | گلسا قمری From her own Youtube Platform: Islamic Radicalism in Canada: Jews Attacked on Christmas - Are you next?
Condemned by mobs on the streets of the West, denounced by governments across Europe and beyond, and vilified by the United Nations and its satellite institutions, Israel might nevertheless be in a stronger strategic position than at any point in its history.
What will Netanyahu discuss with Trump regarding Lebanon?
Salam vows accountability and full funds return as cabinet approves banks law
Lebanese Cabinet Approves Draft Law on Financial Crisis Losses
Lebanon Says 3 Dead in Israeli Strikes
Cabinet Approves The Gap Law
Israel strikes Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit training site in Lebanon
Israel Strikes Northeast Lebanon, Targeting Radwan Force Infrastructure
Israel strikes Hermel, Bouslaiya in east and south Lebanon
Israel says member of elite Iran unit among 3 killed in Thursday strikes
General Security member dies from wounds from Jadra strike
Aoun, Berri and Salam want timely parliamentary elections
Hezbollah Operative Claims Widespread Israeli Penetration, Questions Leadership
An Unprecedented Christmas Message and a Call for Peace in the Levant
On the Perpetual Infatuation with Weapons/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 26-27/2025
Condemned by mobs on the streets of the West, denounced by governments across Europe and beyond, and vilified by the United Nations and its satellite institutions, Israel might nevertheless be in a stronger strategic position than at any point in its history.
Video Link from Goldie Ghamari | گلسا قمری Youtube Platform/Merry Christmas! Tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Israel
Video Link from Goldie Ghamari | گلسا قمری Youtube Platform/The Three Wise Men were Iranian Zoroastrians from the Persian Empire
Video-Link from ILTV Israel News/ UHaifa Professor Warns: Quiet in the Middle East Means Trouble Ahead
Mosque bombing in Syria leaves 8 dead and 18 wounded
Israel Warns Strike on Iran ‘Inevitable’ Without Missile Deal
In a First, Armed Gang in Gaza Forces Displacement of Residents
Palestinian man kills 2 in car-ramming and stabbing attack in northern Israel, police say
Israeli Reservist Rams Vehicle into Palestinian Man Praying in West Bank
UAE welcomes Saudi Arabia’s efforts to support stability in Yemen
Israel recognises Somaliland as independent state, Netanyahu says
Turkish Authorities Say they Have arrested Suspected ISIS Member Planning New Year's Attacks

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 26-27/2025
Few on the 'Far Right' Turn Against the Jews/Pierre Rehov/Gatestone Institute/December 26, 2025
Iraq between Two Dates.Mustafa Fahs/Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
Midnight Hammer in 2025: Trump Ends Half Measures on Iran/London: Adil Al-Salmi/Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
Question: What sort of New Year’s resolution should a Christian make?/GotQuestions.org?/December 26/2025
Looking back at Israel and Iran's ‘12-day war’: Direct conflict breaks out between arch-enemies/David GORMEZANO/France 24/December 26, 2025
2026: A Year of Clarifications?/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
Selected Face Book & X tweets for /December 26, 2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 26-27/2025
Dear Family members & Friends...Merry Christmas
Elias Bejjani/December 25/2025
I extend to you my warmest Christmas greetings, wishing you happy and blessed days with the birth and incarnation of the Lord. I join you in prayer for our beloved Lebanon to reclaim its freedom and independence, and for the peoples of the world to return to the roots of faith so that peace may prevail throughout the earth. Merry Christmas to you all!”

Fear of Saying “Merry Christmas” is a Shame Upon the Peoples, Institutions, and Nations of the Secular West
Elias Bejjani/December 24/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/12/150449/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_ISc0vPkZw
Remaining silent about saying “Merry Christmas” on the anniversary of the Nativity of the Incarnate Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and replacing it with “Season’s Greetings,” is no longer a mere social courtesy. Instead, it has become a malicious, undeclared policy, cultural submission, and a public concession by many Western nations and institutions that claim secularism and courage. In reality, fueled by cowardice, ignorance, and a lack of faith, they practice a form of “Dhimmitude” and deception under the guise of “neutrality.”
What is happening today in secular Western countries is not spontaneous. It is a political decision disguised to empty public opinion of the Name of Christ, to domesticate Christianity, and to turn it into a silent heritage that is forbidden from speaking Christ’s Name or naming Christian feasts openly and without complexes.
What we witness with anger and sorrow is the majority of Western nations disowning their roots—the values, civilization, progress, peace, and coexistence that grew from and with Christianity. They intentionally blind themselves to this history, erasing the mention of Christ Himself. In a cowardly duality, they desire the Christmas holiday while denying the Feast itself; they want the decorations but disown His Name; they want the traditions and the joy, yet they falsify the truth.
This duality regarding Christmas is absolute political hypocrisy and a deep-seated hostility toward Christian values, teachings, and symbols. Certainly, Christian teachings stand against the “fearful state.” What these practitioners of dhimmitude fail to realize is that the Holy Gospel does not know the language of “general greetings,” nor does it recognize the gray, lukewarm, and evasive discourse imposed by governments, corporations, and educational institutions.
In this clear, courageous, and direct context, we highlight the following Gospel verses:
“Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37)
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
“For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory.” (Luke 9:26)
What we say and believe regarding the absence of the phrase “Merry Christmas” is not just an opinion, but a direct condemnation. The shame Christians feel toward Christ in the public sphere is not “smart policy”; it is spiritual betrayal, ignorance, and a lack of faith. Christianity is not a timid minority, nor is it a guest in the West; it is the force that built its language, civilization, laws, calendar, and ethics.
Treating Christianity as a potential threat is not progress, but civilizational suicide. Therefore, saying “Merry Christmas” is not just a greeting; it is an act of faith, a testimony to the Truth and history, and a moral and political resistance against evil, the misguided, and those institutions that fear the Truth. It is a stand against a distorted discourse that wants a Christianity without Christ.
We call upon Christians, rulers, and institutions in the West to name Christian feasts by their proper names without shame. They should do so just as they interact with all other religions that name their feasts with pride and without restriction:
The Muslim says: “Ramadan Mubarak” “Adha Mubarak.”etc
The Jew says: “Happy Hanukkah” and names all his feasts.
The Hindu says: “Happy Diwali” and names all his feasts.
This is the case for all other faiths, and no one in the West asks them to change their names or apologize for them.
In summary, The fear of saying “Merry Christmas” is a disgrace to a West wrapped in a secularism that is supposed to respect religions. It is shameful that this phrase has become a source of fear in countries that claim freedom and pluralism. Ultimately, these are two simple words that carry no weapons or threats, yet they are avoided and replaced by meaningless phrases like “Season’s Greetings.” This cowardly concealment is not respect for others; it is fear and a lack of faith.
In conclusion, our duty is to reject humiliation and compromise, and to say with absolute freedom: Merry Christmas.
*The author, Elias Bejjani, is a Lebanese expatriate activist
Author’s Email: Phoenicia@hotmail.com
Author’s Website: https://eliasbejjaninews.com

Video-Link Commentary by Goldie Ghamari | گلسا قمری From her own Youtube Platform: Islamic Radicalism in Canada: Jews Attacked on Christmas - Are you next?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8yIavm03yw&t=191s
December26/2025

Condemned by mobs on the streets of the West, denounced by governments across Europe and beyond, and vilified by the United Nations and its satellite institutions, Israel might nevertheless be in a stronger strategic position than at any point in its history.
Israel is STRONGER than ever – despite Western outrage. Dan Schueftan maps out the new Middle East
December 23/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/12/150536/
Condemned by mobs on the streets of the West, denounced by governments across Europe and beyond, and vilified by the United Nations and its satellite institutions, Israel might nevertheless be in a stronger strategic position than at any point in its history.
Two years after October 7th, Israel’s international standing has deteriorated even as its regional power has expanded. What appears in Western capitals as isolation and moral failure is understood very differently in the Middle East, where strength is measured not by approval but by the capacity to act, to endure condemnation, and to defeat enemies who interpret restraint as weakness.
In this conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Dan Schueftan, Head of the International Graduate Programme in National Security at the University of Haifa, about why Israel is emerging from this war in a dramatically improved strategic position, despite unprecedented hostility from Western opinion.
Schueftan argues that Israel has dismantled Iran’s regional architecture piece by piece, humiliated Islamist movements across multiple fronts, and forced Arab regimes to confront an uncomfortable reality. Their own survival now depends less on Western guarantees and more on a strong, feared, and determined Israel.
The discussion moves beyond the battlefield to examine why Europe has drifted from strategic thinking into ideological paralysis, why progressive politics treats self defence as a moral failure, and why Israel’s greatest strength lies not in its political leadership but in a society willing to fight, endure and rebuild without illusions.
Watch if you want to understand why Israel’s unpopularity in the West has coincided with a historic consolidation of power in the Middle East, and what that reveals about the condition of Western civilisation.
We Discuss:
Why legitimacy in the West matters less than deterrence in the Middle East
How Iran’s proxy network was degraded through sequential confrontation
Why fear, not affection, is the foundation of regional stability
How European politics abandoned strategy for moral exhibitionism
Why progressive ideology treats weakness as virtue
How Israeli social resilience outperformed political leadership
The shift from reactive defence to pre emptive security doctrine

What will Netanyahu discuss with Trump regarding Lebanon?
Naharnet/December 26/2025 
In their upcoming meeting in the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump will the discuss the U.S. peace plan for Gaza, “which is a plan that cannot be separated from the Lebanese file, especially the issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament, in addition to reaching security and economic agreements with Lebanon and Syria,” multiple sources said. “Netanyahu will present to Trump intelligence reports claiming that Hezbollah is seeking to rebuild its military capabilities, in an attempt to obtain a U.S. green light for waging a new operation against Hezbollah,” U.S. sources told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper. “Although the Trump administration is so far preferring to avoid an escalation, Tel Aviv is proposing harsh conditions to avoid war that are similar to the model imposed in Gaza, topped by the full disarmament of Hezbollah and preventing it from rebuilding any military structure,” the daily added. “The Israeli proposals include a map dividing the area south of the Litani River into three lines: the existing Blue Line, the “red” security line where Israel seeks to establish a military or security presence, and the third line, known as the “green line” or “line of interest,” which effectively constitutes a buffer zone with an economic character, subject to strict conditions. This zone may include areas to which residents would be prevented from returning, in contrast to Lebanon’s insistence on the return of the residents and a cessation of attacks,” Nidaa al-Watan said.
“Thus, the Trump-Netanyahu meeting resembles a political-military-economic operations room, where maps of conflict are discussed as much as areas of influence, amidst an open race between the option of major escalation or the imposition of forced settlements on the victor’s terms. This places Lebanon and the region on the brink of a delicate phase that necessitates close monitoring of every American-Israeli move,” the newspaper added.

Salam vows accountability and full funds return as cabinet approves banks law
Naharnet/December 26/2025
After Cabinet passed a long-awaited banking draft bill that would distribute losses from the 2019 economic crisis amid objections from nine ministers and modest protests, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam appeared a bit agitated as he answered journalists' questions. The law stipulates that each of the state, the central bank, commercial banks and depositors will share the losses accrued as a result of the financial crisis. Depositors, who lost access to their funds after the crisis, will be able to retrieve all their money, with a limit of $100,000, over the course of four years. The wealthiest depositors will see the remainder of their money compensated by asset-backed securities. "Bonds have a value," Salam assured the journalists. He said the law is not perfect and has some shortcomings. "It does not meet everyone's aspirations -- not even mine, but the most important thing is that it is realistic.""85% of the depositors (Those who have $100,000 in their bank accounts) will receive their funds in full. The remaining depositors will also receive their funds, but not as quickly," Salam said. "The bonds are not mere promises on paper; they are backed by $50 billion from the Central Bank's assets."The financial gap law also stipulates accountability, Salam said. It means that politically exposed persons and major shareholders who transferred significant capital outside the country from 2019 onwards -- while ordinary depositors were deprived of their savings -- must return them within three months or face fines. "We will carry out a forensic audit and hold those responsible to account," the PM said. The draft law is a key demand from the international community, which has conditioned economic aid to Lebanon on financial reforms. The draft will be sent to parliament, where it could be blocked.

Lebanese Cabinet Approves Draft Law on Financial Crisis Losses
Beirut: Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
Lebanon's government on Friday approved a draft law to distribute financial losses from the 2019 economic crisis that deprived many Lebanese of their deposits despite strong opposition to the legislation from political parties, depositors and banking officials. The draft law will be submitted to the country's divided parliament for approval before it can become effective. The legislation, known as the "financial gap" law, is part of a series of reform measures required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to access funding from the lender. The cabinet passed the draft bill with 13 ministers in favor and nine against. It stipulates that each of the state, the central bank, commercial banks and depositors will share the losses accrued as a result of the financial crisis. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam defended the bill, saying it "is not ideal... and may not meet everyone's aspirations" but is "a realistic and fair step on the path to restoring rights, stopping the collapse... and healing the banking sector.”According to government estimates, the losses resulting from the financial crisis amounted to about $70 billion, a figure that is expected to have increased over the six years that the crisis was left unaddressed. Depositors who have less than $100,000 in the banks, and who constitute 85 percent of total accounts, will be able to recover them in full over a period of four years, Salam said. Larger depositors will be able to obtain $100,000 while the remaining part of their funds will be compensated through tradable bonds, which will be backed by the assets of the central bank. The central bank's portfolio includes approximately $50 billion, according to Salam. The premier told journalists that the bill includes "accountability and oversight for the first time.”"Everyone who transferred their money before the financial collapse in 2019 by exploiting their position or influence... and everyone who benefited from excessive profits or bonuses will be held accountable and required to pay compensation of up to 30 percent of these amounts," he said. Responding to objections from banking officials, who claim components of the bill place a major burden on the banks, Salam said the law "also aims to revive the banking sector by assessing bank assets and recapitalizing them.”The IMF, which closely monitored the drafting of the bill, previously insisted on the need to "restore the viability of the banking sector consistent with international standards" and protect small depositors. Parliament passed a banking secrecy reform law in April, followed by a banking sector restructuring law in June, one of several key pieces of legislation aimed at reforming the financial system. However, observers believe it is unlikely that parliament will pass the current bill before the next legislative elections in May. Financial reforms in Lebanon have been repeatedly derailed by political and private interests over the last six years, but Salam and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun have pledged to prioritize them.

Lebanon Says 3 Dead in Israeli Strikes
Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
Lebanon said Israeli strikes near the Syrian border and in the country's south killed three people on Thursday, as Israel said it targeted a member of Iran's elite Quds Force and a Hezbollah operative. Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon and has maintained troops in five areas it deems strategic. "An Israeli enemy strike today on a vehicle in the town of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali in the Hermel district killed two people," the health ministry said, referring to a location in northeast Lebanon near the Syrian border. It later reported one person was killed in an Israeli strike in Majdal Selm, in the country's south. Separately the Israeli military said it killed Hussein Mahmud Marshad al-Jawhari, "a key terrorist in the operational unit of the Quds Force", the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards. It said he "was involved in terror activities, directed by Iran, against the state of Israel and its security forces" from Lebanon and Syria. The Israeli military also said it killed "a Hezbollah terrorist" in an area near Majdal Selm. Under heavy US pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming Hezbollah, starting with the south.  Lebanon's army plans to complete the disarmament south of the Litani River -- about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border with Israel -- by year's end. Israel has questioned the Lebanese military's effectiveness and has accused Hezbollah of rearming, while the group itself has rejected calls to surrender its weapons. More than 340 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry reports. The NNA also reported Thursday that a man wounded in an Israeli strike last week south of Beirut had died of his injuries. It identified him as a member of Lebanon's General Security agency and said "he happened to be passing at the time of the strike as he returned from service" in the capital. The health ministry had said that strike targeted a vehicle on the Chouf district's Jadra-Siblin road, killing one person and wounding five others. On Tuesday, Lebanon's army said a soldier was among those killed in a strike this week and denied the Israeli military's accusation that he was a Hezbollah operative. Lebanese army chief Rodolphe Haykal told a military meeting on Tuesday "the army is in the process of finishing the first phase of its plan".

Cabinet Approves The Gap Law
This is Beiruts/December 26, 2025
On Friday, Lebanon’s Cabinet approved the Gap Law after a vote in which 13 ministers supported the measure and nine opposed it, according to official information. Those who voted against the law included ministers from the Lebanese Forces, Hezbollah, and the Amal Movement, as well as Minister Adel Nassar and the Minister of Youth and Sports. According to reports, the Minister of Information conditioned his approval on the inclusion of amendments he said would protect depositors’ interests. According to information obtained by MTV, several ministers called for caution during discussions, urging against rushing the law’s adoption in order to reach a version that could be effectively implemented. The report said discussions were held on each article, with more than one minister refusing to support the law without amendments. The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at the Grand Serail. The Director General of the Presidency of the Republic, Antoine Chkair, also attended the session.

Israel strikes Hezbollah's elite Radwan unit training site in Lebanon
Euronews/December 26/2025
Israel conducted airstrikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon on Friday, including a training site used by the militant group's elite Radwan Force, the Israeli military said. The strikes targeted a site used for training operatives, conducting live-fire drills and planning attacks against Israeli forces and civilians, according to the IDF.Israel also struck several Hezbollah weapons depots, infrastructure and military buildings used to “advance terror plots against IDF forces and the State of Israel," the military said. Lebanese media reported strikes concentrated in the northeastern Hermel region. Casualties were not immediately known. The military said the targets and Hezbollah's training activities violate understandings between Israel and Lebanon and pose a threat to Israel, adding that it would continue operations to remove such threats. Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in November 2024 after more than a year of cross-border fighting that began when Hezbollah launched attacks following the 7 October 2023 Hamas assault on Israel. The ceasefire required both sides to halt hostilities, with Lebanon responsible for preventing armed groups from attacking Israel and Israel committed to ending offensive military operations.
The Lebanese army was tasked with disarming Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has rejected laying down its weapons. However, Israel has conducted near-daily strikes across Lebanon since the truce began, saying it is targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to prevent the group from rebuilding its military capabilities. The UN reported that more than 330 people have been killed in Israeli operations since the ceasefire began. Lebanon's government has come under pressure to disarm Hezbollah, with Israeli officials warning of renewed military operations if the group is not fully dismantled.
The Radwan Force is Hezbollah's elite special operations unit, established with assistance from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The unit, estimated to number around 2,500 fighters, gained significant battlefield experience during the Syrian war and is tasked with planning cross-border operations into northern Israel, including potential infiltration and seizure of Israeli territory in the Galilee region. Hezbollah has functioned as Iran's primary proxy since its formation in 1982, with Tehran providing the group with an estimated $700 million to $1 billion annually (€600m to €850m), along with weapons, training and political support through the IRGC, according to recent US government assessments.Israel killed Hezbollah's military chief of staff Haytham Ali Tabatabai in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on 23 November, the most senior commander to die since the ceasefire began a year earlier.

Israel Strikes Northeast Lebanon, Targeting Radwan Force Infrastructure
This is Beiruts/December 26, 2025
Israel launched a series of airstrikes Friday afternoon on the outskirts of Hermel, targeting a training site used by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force
Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X that the strike targeted a site used for training operatives, conducting live-fire drills and planning attacks against Israeli forces and civilians. The IDF also struck several Hezbollah weapons depots, infrastructure and military buildings. Adraee noted, “The targets that were struck, along with Hezbollah’s military exercises in preparation for launching operations against the State of Israel, constitute a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon and a threat to the State of Israel.” Airstrikes Friday afternoon also targeted southern Lebanon, hitting Jebel Safi, the Al-Bureij area in Al-Tuffah, the southern town of Basaliya, and several locations in the Jezzine district. The strikes on Friday come a day after Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon left three people dead.Under U.S. pressure and fears of imminent Israeli strikes, the Lebanese government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, starting south of the Litani River by year’s end. Israel has accused Hezbollah of rearming and has questioned the Lebanese military's effectiveness. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its arms.

Israel strikes Hermel, Bouslaiya in east and south Lebanon
Agence France Presse/December 26, 2025
The Israeli military announced a series of strikes on "Hezbollah targets" in south and east Lebanon on Friday, including "weapons depots" and a "training" complex. "A number of weapons storage facilities and terrorist infrastructure sites were struck, which were used by Hezbollah to advance terror attacks against the state of Israel," the military said in a statement. The strikes targeted the outskirts of Hermel in northeast Lebanon and the southern town of Bouslaiya in the Jezzine District. Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has continued to strike in Lebanon and has maintained troops in five areas it deems "strategic". More than 340 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry reports. The strikes on Friday come a day after similar Israeli attacks near the Syrian border and in southern Lebanon left three people dead. The Israeli military had reported on Thursday it had killed a member of arch-foe Iran's elite Quds Force in a strike in Lebanon. On Friday, the military said it had struck several military structures of Hezbollah, warning it would "remove any threat posed to the state of Israel". Under heavy U.S. pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming Hezbollah, starting in the south of the country near the frontier. Lebanon's army plans to complete the disarmament south of the Litani River -- about 30 kilometers from the border with Israel -- by year's end. Israel has questioned the Lebanese military's effectiveness and has accused Hezbollah of rearming, while the group itself has rejected calls to surrender its weapons.

Israel says member of elite Iran unit among 3 killed in Thursday strikes
Agence France Presse/December 26, 2025
Lebanon said Israeli strikes near the Syrian border and in the country's south killed three people on Thursday, as Israel said it targeted a member of Iran's elite Quds Force and a Hezbollah operative. Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon and has maintained troops in five areas it deems strategic. "An Israeli enemy strike today on a vehicle in the town of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali in the Hermel district killed two people," the health ministry said, referring to a location in northeast Lebanon near the Syrian border. It later reported one person was killed in an Israeli strike in Majdal Selm, in the country's south. Separately the Israeli military said it killed Hussein Mahmoud Marshad al-Jawhari, "a key terrorist in the operational unit of the Quds Force", the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards. It said he "was involved in terror activities, directed by Iran, against the state of Israel and its security forces" from Lebanon and Syria. The Israeli military also said it killed "a Hezbollah terrorist" in an area near Majdal Selm. Under heavy U.S. pressure and fears of expanded Israeli strikes, Lebanon has committed to disarming Hezbollah, starting with the south. Lebanon's army plans to complete the disarmament south of the Litani River -- about 30 kilometers from the border with Israel -- by year's end. Israel has questioned the Lebanese military's effectiveness and has accused Hezbollah of rearming, while the group itself has rejected calls to surrender its weapons. More than 340 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry reports. The NNA also reported Thursday that a man wounded in an Israeli strike last week south of Beirut had died of his injuries.
It identified him as a member of Lebanon's General Security agency and said "he happened to be passing at the time of the strike as he returned from service" in the capital. The health ministry had said that strike targeted a vehicle on the Shouf district's Jadra-Siblin road, killing one person and wounding five others.
On Tuesday, Lebanon's army said a soldier was among those killed in a strike this week and denied the Israeli military's accusation that he was a Hezbollah operative. Lebanese army chief Rodolphe Haykal told a military meeting on Tuesday "the army is in the process of finishing the first phase of its plan".

General Security member dies from wounds from Jadra strike
Agence France Presse/December 26, 2025
A man wounded in an Israeli strike last week south of Beirut has died of his injuries, The National News Agency said. It identified him as a member of Lebanon's General Security agency and said "he happened to be passing at the time of the strike as he returned from service" in the capital, earlier this month. The health ministry had said that strike targeted a vehicle on the Shouf district's Jadra-Siblin road, killing one person and wounding five others.

Aoun, Berri and Salam want timely parliamentary elections
Naharnet/December 26, 2025
President Joseph Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam agree that the upcoming parliamentary elections -- scheduled for May 2026 -- should be held on time, a media report said. Aoun, Berri and Salam are insisting on timely elections, despite some calls for postponing the polls for two years, but they would agree to a “technical” postponement for two or three months, sources close to the three leaders told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. And as the sources linked timely elections to appropriate security situations and the non-expansion of Israel’s strikes on Lebanon, Aoun announced Thursday that diplomatic contacts have managed to “cast out the specter of war.”

Hezbollah Operative Claims Widespread Israeli Penetration, Questions Leadership
This is Beiruts/December 26, 2025
A Hezbollah military operative told Israel’s N12 channel on Thursday that Israel has infiltrated the militant group so extensively that “70% of Hezbollah members work with Israel.”The anonymous military operative highlighted a significant intelligence gap in Hezbollah, noting the persistent uncertainty over how Israel has penetrated the group so deeply. “Israel knows more about us than we know about ourselves,” the source said. He expressed uncertainty about how information is reaching Israel and that Hezbollah waits each day for statements from Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee before deciding on its next steps. The member also claimed that Hezbollah failed to protect Lebanese and Palestinian territory. “If the government takes our weapons and returns us to our homes and land, I think that’s what should be done,” he said. “What good have these weapons done us?” He claimed that about 60% of Hezbollah members share his view. He also noted that Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, is “very different” from the militant group’s predecessor, saying, “We do not understand him. The current situation would be very different if Nasrallah were still alive.” The anonymous Hezbollah operative’s comments come amid growing concerns in Lebanon’s Shia community about the group’s ability to provide essential services. Those worries are compounded by mounting U.S. pressure to disarm and Israeli warnings of potential military escalation, prompting many to question whether loyalty to the group is worth the risk of renewed conflict and destruction.

An Unprecedented Christmas Message and a Call for Peace in the Levant
This is Beiruts/December 26, 2025
For the first time since returning to office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a Christmas message to Christians around the world last night. Broadcast from Jerusalem, his address carried symbolic weight, signaling a notable shift in rhetoric that extended far beyond a traditional seasonal greeting.
By highlighting the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the freedom of worship guaranteed in Israel, the Israeli Prime Minister sought to situate his remarks within a broader regional framework focused on the protection of religious minorities, interfaith coexistence, and stability in the Levant.
Christians and Jews: A Shared Destiny in the Levant
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Christmas message highlights a reality often overlooked amid conflict: Christians and Jews are native communities of the Levant, deeply rooted in its history, culture, and spiritual geography. Their survival and flourishing are not merely matters of religious concern but a major civilizational and political issue. In a region shaped by wars, radicalism, and state collapse, coexistence between Christians and Jews remains a key indicator of stability. Where these communities can live freely, practice their faith without fear, and participate fully in public life, societies tend to be more open, pluralistic, and resilient.
Lebanon: A Fragile Crossroads of Religious Coexistence
This issue is especially important for Lebanon, a country historically built on religious pluralism and confessional coexistence. The weakening of the state, the large-scale departure of Christians, and the growing influence of military and ideological agendas have deeply undermined this balance.
In this context, regional peace is not a diplomatic abstraction but a vital necessity. For Lebanon, it is essential for restoring sovereignty, achieving economic stability, and safeguarding its pluralistic model. For Israel, it offers a strategic horizon to secure its northern borders and establish durable regional ties.
Why Israeli-Lebanese Peace Has Become Unavoidable
Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, while not mentioning Lebanon directly, comes at a time when diplomatic lines are shifting. Ceasefires, de-escalation mechanisms, and indirect talks have all shown their limits. In the long term, only a negotiated peace based on mutual interests and reciprocal security guarantees can prevent the Levant from falling back into cyclical conflict. For both Lebanon and Israel, the continuation of direct negotiations, even if discreet, gradual, and pragmatic, is essential. They allow security, territorial, and economic issues to be addressed directly, without intermediaries who might be exploited, and help anchor solutions in the realities on the ground.
A Religious Statement with Political Consequences
By addressing Christians at Christmas, Benjamin Netanyahu sent a message that goes beyond the religious sphere. He reminded the world that the protection of minorities, religious freedom, and coexistence are not incompatible with security imperatives but can in fact form their very foundation.
In a fractured Levant, where communities are too often manipulated by conflict, peace between Israel and Lebanon would be not only a strategic turning point but also a message of hope for Christians, Jews, and all the peoples of the region: that lasting coexistence remains possible, provided it is desired and built through dialogue.

On the Perpetual Infatuation with Weapons...
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
Hezbollah has, for the thousandth time, refused to lay down its arms, as have Hamas and Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujabaa.
It is, of course, easy to demonstrate how Iran’s wishes and its need for the continued armament of our militants contribute to determining their stance. Radical movements in the Arab world had, however, developed a nearly singular fondness for arms before it was ever fostered from without. The poems written to arms, as well as the songs and jingles that praised them, are matched only by the hyperbolic characterizations of the missiles Nasser and Saddam Hussein had acquired long before Khomeini appeared on the horizon. With hits like "The weapons I keep don’t sleep,The battles persist," and "Now I have a rifle," these movements developed both chaste and raunchy love affairs with these weapons. Some of us still remember the veneration of the Russian Kalashnikov rifles that the Palestinian resistance had armed itself with, and how we renamed it "Klashinkov" before calling it by the pet name "Kalashin".
Ballads to arms and the arguments made in their defense are part of a self-sustaining narrative, and they always have been. Arms enthusiasts sought them so they could resist or liberate. These functions exempt, and have always exempted, those who carry these arms from discussing what they will do after liberation is achieved, and resistance ends. Pursuant to the axiom of "weapons for weapons' sake," politics was thereby impoverished further, losing any independent status beyond the miracle of arms. As for the state, which is supposed to monopolize armament, it has been portrayed as an aberration resulting from our fragmentation at the hands of colonialists; it was born a colonial lackey. This narrative frames militias as far superior to the state, not only because they are “of the people and the nation," but also because they are, by definition, unconstrained armed movements that pursue unrestrained armament.
The root of the problem is that many tools contributed more than arms to the victory of the Western (and later Israeli) "enemy" whom we point our increasingly sacralized arms at. It gained the upper hand through several transformative revolutions- scientific, religious, industrial, intellectual, and political- with its military superiority merely one of these revolutions’ many results. It appears that Arab consciousness steamrolled these shifts, leading its subjects to disregard everything but arms, and to the conclusion that the answer is to develop weapons that could defeat the weapons of the West.
Depressingly, not a single episode of the region’s modern history supports this reductionist theory; in fact, too many to count point in the opposite direction. The first step along this long trajectory that continues its way- battle by battle and war by war- came in 1798, when French troops led by Bonaparte crushed the Mamluks and the Ottomans at the Battle of the Pyramids. Almost a century later, Ahmed Urabi was routed by the British fleet in 1882. Afterwards, the Ottoman Empire was defeated by the Italians shortly before the First World War, during which it was defeated by the British in Jerusalem and then in Damascus. Yusuf al-Azma and his fighters fared no better against the French in Maysalun than the forces of the Iraqi “Revolution of the 1920s” did against the British, and these defeats were soon followed by that of Sultan al-Atrash and the “Great Syrian Revolt” in 1925. The war of 1948 went the same way, with seven Arab armies defeated by “Zionist gangs” that had brought their Western experience and training with them to Palestine.That was all essentially a prelude that paved the way for the defeats of the regimes and radical movements that would follow: from Egyptian Nasserism and Syrian Baathism in 1967, to the Palestinian resistance in 1982, to Baathist Iraq's defeat in 1991 and then the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and finally the recent “Al-Aqsa Flood” and “Support” wars.
Every one of them was a foundational defeat. The Mamluks’ defeat led to the French campaign and then the rise of Muhammad Ali, while the subsequent defeats of the Ottomans and local resistance movements molded the region into nation-states. In turn, the defeats to Israel, and the subsequent demise of Nasser and then Saddam Hussein, is largely responsible for the current state of the Arab world. Accordingly, it is fair to say that the modern history of the Middle East is a history of defeats that should have laid the groundwork for a collective consciousness hostile to arms that underpins the emergence of mass peace movements, if not on humanitarian and ethical grounds then for purely pragmatic considerations, especially since nine times out of ten, these weapons are used in civic conflicts. And yet, we have seen the exact opposite: time and again, the infatuation with weapons is reincarnated.
Under the weight of defeats that went so far as to defeat reason itself, this infatuation only grew more combustible as it was coupled with ridiculous threats and rhetoric about how the “enemy understands nothing but the language of force.”One could argue that we are so taken by weapons because they are all we have. That is sad and pathetic enough in itself, but it does not justify compounding this depressing state of affairs by depressing our reason. What is there to say, then, once we add that much of this arsenal is sourced from this same Western “enemy?”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 26-27/2025
Condemned by mobs on the streets of the West, denounced by governments across Europe and beyond, and vilified by the United Nations and its satellite institutions, Israel might nevertheless be in a stronger strategic position than at any point in its history.
Israel is STRONGER than ever – despite Western outrage. Dan Schueftan maps out the new Middle East
December 23/2025
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/12/150536/
Condemned by mobs on the streets of the West, denounced by governments across Europe and beyond, and vilified by the United Nations and its satellite institutions, Israel might nevertheless be in a stronger strategic position than at any point in its history.
Two years after October 7th, Israel’s international standing has deteriorated even as its regional power has expanded. What appears in Western capitals as isolation and moral failure is understood very differently in the Middle East, where strength is measured not by approval but by the capacity to act, to endure condemnation, and to defeat enemies who interpret restraint as weakness.
In this conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Dan Schueftan, Head of the International Graduate Programme in National Security at the University of Haifa, about why Israel is emerging from this war in a dramatically improved strategic position, despite unprecedented hostility from Western opinion.
Schueftan argues that Israel has dismantled Iran’s regional architecture piece by piece, humiliated Islamist movements across multiple fronts, and forced Arab regimes to confront an uncomfortable reality. Their own survival now depends less on Western guarantees and more on a strong, feared, and determined Israel.
The discussion moves beyond the battlefield to examine why Europe has drifted from strategic thinking into ideological paralysis, why progressive politics treats self defence as a moral failure, and why Israel’s greatest strength lies not in its political leadership but in a society willing to fight, endure and rebuild without illusions.
Watch if you want to understand why Israel’s unpopularity in the West has coincided with a historic consolidation of power in the Middle East, and what that reveals about the condition of Western civilisation.
We Discuss:
Why legitimacy in the West matters less than deterrence in the Middle East
How Iran’s proxy network was degraded through sequential confrontation
Why fear, not affection, is the foundation of regional stability
How European politics abandoned strategy for moral exhibitionism
Why progressive ideology treats weakness as virtue
How Israeli social resilience outperformed political leadership
The shift from reactive defence to pre emptive security doctrine

Video Link from Goldie Ghamari | گلسا قمری Youtube Platform/Merry Christmas! Tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC-Kx8X_Zok&t=82s
December 24, 2025

Video Link from Goldie Ghamari | گلسا قمری Youtube Platform/The Three Wise Men were Iranian Zoroastrians from the Persian Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ncqO6tMzA&list=PL5qD665B0J4bHQg0zyW5KuNqnRgcqIjhO&index=2
Did you know that the Three Wise Men were Iranian Zoroastrians from the Persian Empire?
Everyone knows about Cyrus the Great, but not a lot of people know about the Three Wise Men.
And it makes sense... the Persian Empire is intertwined in Biblical history.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Merry Christmas everyone!

Video-Link from ILTV Israel News/ UHaifa Professor Warns: Quiet in the Middle East Means Trouble Ahead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNOASrD7juY&t=488s
December 26/2025
Israel should not expect peace or tranquility in the Middle East, warns Dr. Dan Schueftan of the University of Haifa. In this interview on the ILTV Podcast with Maayan Hoffman, Schueftan explains why quiet on Israel’s borders often signals preparation for future conflict, why cooperation matters more than normalization, and how Israel’s hard power underpins its regional influence. He addresses Western criticism of Israel’s military actions, the shared threats facing Israel and Arab states, and why smart optimism means getting stronger even as challenges grow.

Mosque bombing in Syria leaves 8 dead and 18 wounded
Ghaith Alsayed And Sally Abou Aljoud/AP/December 26, 2025
IDLIB, Syria (AP) — A bombing at a mosque in the Syrian city of Homs during Friday prayers killed at least eight people and wounded 18 others, authorities said, as long-standing sectarian, ethnic and political fault lines continue to destabilize the country, even as large-scale fighting has subsided. Images released by Syria’s state-run Arab News Agency showed blood on the mosque’s carpets, holes in the walls, shattered windows and fire damage. The Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque is located in Homs, Syria's third-largest city, in an area of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood dominated by the Alawite minority. SANA, citing a security source, said that preliminary investigations indicate that explosive devices were planted inside the mosque. Authorities were searching for the perpetrators, who have not yet been identified, and a security cordon was placed around the building, Syria’s Interior Ministry said in a statement. A little-known group calling itself Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Telegram channel. The same group had previously claimed a suicide attack in June in which a gunman opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest inside a Greek Orthodox church in Dweil’a, on the outskirts of Damascus, killing 25 people as worshippers prayed on a Sunday. The Syrian government blamed the church attack on a cell of the Islamic State group, saying IS had also planned to target a Shiite Muslim shrine. IS did not claim responsibility for the attack. The group follows an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and considers Shiites to be infidels. Syria recently joined the global coalition against IS and has launched a crackdown on IS cells, particularly after an attack on U.S. forces earlier this month that killed two service members and a civilian translator.
Targeted violence against Alawites
The country has experienced several waves of sectarian clashes since the fall of President Bashar Assad last year. Assad, himself an Alawite, fled the country to Russia. Members of his sect have been subjected to crackdowns. In March, an ambush carried out by Assad’s supporters against security forces triggered days of violence that left hundreds of people dead, most of them Alawites. In a statement, the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and the Diaspora described the attack as “a continuation of the organized extremist terrorism specifically targeting the Alawite community, and increasingly other Syrian groups as well.” The council held the Syrian government “fully and directly responsible for these crimes,” adding that “these criminal acts will not go unanswered.”Local officials condemned Friday's attack, saying it came “within the context of repeated desperate attempts to undermine security and stability and sow chaos among the Syrian people.” “Syria reiterates its firm stance in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added in a statement. “Remnants of the former regime, IS militants and collaborators have converged on a single goal: obstructing the path of the new state by undermining stability, threatening civil peace, and eroding the shared coexistence and common destiny of Syrians throughout history,” the Syrian information minister said in a post on X. Huge explosion shattered mosque's windows The mosque’s deputy imam — a religious official who helps lead prayers — told Syria’s state-run Al-Ikhbariyah television that worshippers were praying when they “heard a loud explosion that knocked us to the ground. Fire broke out in one corner of the mosque. Those of us who were not wounded rushed to help get the injured out. Within minutes, general security forces and the Red Crescent arrived.”“The explosion was huge,” he said. “It shattered the mosque’s windows and caused a fire that burned copies of the Holy Quran.”Neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon, also condemned the attack. In a statement, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reaffirmed “Lebanon’s support for Syria in its fight against terrorism.”On Monday, clashes erupted intermittently between Syrian government forces and Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, in mixed neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo, forcing temporary closures of schools and public institutions and prompting civilians to shelter indoors. A late-evening ceasefire was then announced by both sides amid ongoing de-escalation efforts.

Israel Warns Strike on Iran ‘Inevitable’ Without Missile Deal
This is Beirut/December 26, 2025
A senior Israeli military official warned that an attack on Iran would become “inevitable” if the U.S. fails to reach an agreement limiting Tehran’s ballistic missile program. The official, speaking to Israel’s Ynet news site, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to present U.S. President Donald Trump with intelligence assessments during a meeting scheduled for Monday, warning of what Israel views as an escalating Iranian missile threat.
Israeli Warnings and Iranian Activity
According to the official, Israel may be forced to act militarily if diplomatic efforts fail, stressing that Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities pose a “grave danger.” He added that a large-scale missile launch towards Israel could cause destruction comparable to that of a “small nuclear bomb.”The comments come amid reports that Iran is preparing to significantly expand missile production, with the aim of being able to launch hundreds of missiles simultaneously in the event of renewed conflict. Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was “aware” of recent Iranian military drills and would raise the issue directly with the U.S. president. He warned that any Iranian move would be met with a “very harsh response,” amid concerns in Israel that Tehran is seeking to rebuild its missile arsenal following the 12-day war in June. His comments came after reports from inside Iran of missile tests or military maneuvers in several provinces. While Iranian state television later denied that any drills had taken place, Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported sightings of white smoke believed to be linked to missile activity. Iran’s state broadcaster also aired footage promoting what it described as a “missile hell” awaiting Israel.
Military Posturing on Both Sides
On Monday, Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir hinted at the possibility of renewed strikes, saying the military would act “wherever necessary, on near and distant fronts alike.” He described the campaign against Iran as central to what he called the “longest and most complex war” in Israel’s history, accusing Tehran of financing and arming forces surrounding Israel across multiple fronts.In response, Iranian armed forces spokesperson Abolfazl Shekarchi said on Tuesday that Iran’s naval, ground and missile capabilities were “fully prepared for any scenario imposed by the enemy,” adding that much of the country’s military capacity had yet to be deployed.
Rising Risk of Escalation
According to a report by Axios, Israeli officials told the Trump administration over the weekend that Iran’s recent missile activity had raised serious concerns, even though available intelligence does not yet indicate preparations for an imminent attack. The report added that Israel’s tolerance for risk has sharply decreased since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, with one Israeli official saying the likelihood of an Iranian strike may be below 50 percent, but that “no one is willing to take that chance.”Israeli and U.S. officials have also warned that miscalculation on either side could trigger an unintended war, particularly if both interpret the other’s actions as preparations for an imminent strike.
Military Assessments and Regional Fallout
Israeli intelligence assessments indicate that Iran is accelerating efforts to rebuild its missile capabilities, estimating that Tehran currently possesses around 1,500 missiles, down from approximately 3,000 before the June conflict, as well as 200 launchers, compared with around 400 previously. On June 13, Israel launched a large-scale attack on strategic targets inside Iran, killing dozens of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders and nuclear-linked officials. The United States later joined the campaign, carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The renewed warnings come at a moment of heightened regional fragility, with tensions stretching from southern Lebanon to the Red Sea. Analysts say Israel’s increasingly direct rhetoric reflects growing concern that diplomatic efforts may no longer be sufficient to curb Iran’s military posture. Any miscalculation risks widening a conflict that regional and international actors have struggled to contain since the outbreak of war in Gaza.

In a First, Armed Gang in Gaza Forces Displacement of Residents
Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
In an unprecedented development, an armed gang active in Gaza City forced inhabitants of residential bloc to evacuate their homes under threat of arms. Field sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that identified the gang as the “Rami Halas Group”. At dawn on Thursday, its members opened fire in the air in the Hayy al-Tuffah neighborhood in eastern Gaza City. The area is located near Israel’s so-called yellow line that separates Hamas- and Israel-held parts of Gaza. The gang members came back hours later at noon and demanded that the residents evacuate, giving them until sunset to comply and threatening to shoot anyone who doesn’t. The sources said the gunmen did not directly approach any of the residents for fear of being attacked. They used loudspeakers to demand that they evacuate to areas a few hundred meters away, claiming these were Israeli orders. Israeli forces are deployed some 150 meters from the area where the residents were located. The residents, who had only just returned to their homes after the ceasefire, indeed started to evacuate towards western parts of Gaza City. The sources said over 240 residents were forced to quit what remains of their damaged homes. They revealed that Israeli forces had on Tuesday and Wednesday night dropped yellow barrels, devoid of explosives, in those regions. They did not ask residents to evacuate. The sources said the gang made the evacuation order ahead of Israel’s plan to occupy the area, which had been previously declared as safe. They accused Israeli forces of resorting to such tactics in recent weeks to further expand the yellow line border and occupy more areas in Gaza.

Palestinian man kills 2 in car-ramming and stabbing attack in northern Israel, police say
Julia Frankel/AP/December 26, 2025
JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian attacker rammed his car into a man and then stabbed a young woman in northern Israel Friday, killing both, police said, as the Israeli defense minister quickly ordered military retaliation on what he said was the assailant's West Bank hometown. The attack began Friday afternoon in the northern city of Beit Shean, where the Palestinian man crashed his vehicle into people, killing one man and injuring a teenage boy. He then sped onto a highway, where he fatally stabbed the woman, and injured another person near the entrance to the city of Afula. That's where the attacker was shot, according to authorities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu identified the victims as Aviv Maor, a teenager, and Shimshon Mordechai, 68. Paramedics pronounced both dead at the scene. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that he was shocked by the “horrific killing spree.” He said that Israel was “committed to reinforcing and strengthening this challenging border and, of course, to bolstering the security response in the area for the full safety of the residents.”Israel's military soon after began amassing troops near the Palestinian town of Qabatiya, where Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the assailant was from. Katz said that he’d ordered troops to “act forcefully and immediately” against what he called “terrorist infrastructure" in the town. “Anyone who aids or sponsors terrorism will pay the full price," he said. It's common practice for Israel to launch raids in the West Bank towns that attackers come from or demolish homes belonging to the assailants’ families. Israel says that it helps to locate militant infrastructure and prevents future attacks. Rights watchdogs describe such actions as collective punishment. Raids have been conducted in the area of Qabatiya, which is in the northern West Bank near the major city of Jenin, over the last few weeks.On Dec. 20, Israel's military said that they killed a person in Qabatiya who “hurled a block toward the soldiers.” It later said that the killing was under review, after Palestinian media aired brief security footage in which the youth appears to emerge from an alley and is shot by troops as he approaches them without throwing anything. The Israel-Hamas war, which began with the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. It has also sparked a surge of violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank, with a rise in attacks by Palestinian militants as well as Israeli settler violence against Palestinians. In September, Palestinian attackers opened fire at a bus stop during the morning rush hour in Jerusalem, killing six people and wounding another 12, according to Israeli officials.
*Julia Frankel, The Associated Press

Israeli Reservist Rams Vehicle into Palestinian Man Praying in West Bank
Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
An Israeli reservist soldier rammed his vehicle into a Palestinian man as he prayed on a roadside in ​the occupied West Bank on Thursday, after earlier firing shots in the area, the Israeli military said. "Footage was received of an armed individual running over a Palestinian individual," it said in a statement, adding the individual was a reservist ‌and his ‌military service had ‌been terminated. The ⁠reservist ​acted "in severe ‌violation of his authority" and his weapon had been confiscated, the military said. Israeli media reported that he was being held under house arrest. The Israeli police did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.The ⁠Palestinian man went to hospital for checks after ‌the attack, but was unhurt ‍and is now ‍at home. Video which aired on Palestinian ‍TV shows a man in civilian clothing with a gun slung over his shoulder driving an off-road vehicle into a man praying on ​the side of the road. This year ​was one of the most violent on ⁠record for Israeli civilian attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, according to United Nations data that shows more than 750 injuries. More than a thousand Palestinians were killed in the West Bank between October 7, 2023 and October 17, 2025, mostly in operations by security forces and some by settler violence, according to the UN In ‌the same period, 57 Israelis were killed in Palestinian attacks.

UAE welcomes Saudi Arabia’s efforts to support stability in Yemen
Arab News/December 26, 2025
DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates on Friday welcomed Saudi Arabia’s efforts to support security and stability in Yemen, state news agency WAM reported.
In a statement, the UAE praised the Kingdom’s constructive role in advancing the interests of the Yemeni people and supporting their legitimate aspirations for stability and prosperity. The UAE also reaffirmed its commitment to backing all initiatives aimed at strengthening stability and development in Yemen, emphasizing its support for efforts that contribute to regional security and prosperity.

Israel recognises Somaliland as independent state, Netanyahu says
Tom McArthur; Abdirahman Ali Dhimbil/BBC/December 26, 2025
Israel has become the first country to formally recognise Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland as an independent nation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel intended to immediately expand cooperation in agriculture, health, and technology. Somaliland's president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, called the development "a historic moment". Recognition by Israel could encourage other nations to follow suit, increasing the region's diplomatic credentials and access to international markets. But the decision has been condemned by the foreign ministers of Somalia, Egypt, Turkey and Djibouti, who in a statement affirmed their "total rejection" of Israel's announcement. Abdullahi said in a statement that Somaliland would join the Abraham Accords, in what he called a step toward regional and global peace. Somaliland was committed to building partnerships, boosting mutual prosperity and promoting stability across the Middle East and Africa, he added. The two countries had agreed to establish "full diplomatic ties, which will include the appointment of ambassadors and the opening of embassies", Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a statement on X. Meanwhile, Egypt's foreign minister held separate phone calls with his counterparts in Somalia, Turkey and Djibouti to discuss issues including Israel's declaration. In a statement, Egypt's foreign ministry said the four countries reaffirmed their support for Somalia's unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and warned against unilateral steps that could undermine stability or create what they called "parallel entities" to Somalia's state institutions. They also argued that recognising the independence of parts of sovereign states would set a dangerous precedent under international law and the United Nations Charter.
The statement added that the ministers reiterated their rejection of any plans to displace Palestinians outside their homeland. Israel has for years been trying to bolster relations with countries in the Middle East and Africa, but recent wars including in Gaza and against Iran have been seen as a hindrance to democracy. Historic deals struck late in Trump's first term in 2020, known as the Abraham Accords, saw several countries including Muslim-majority United Arab Emirates and Morocco normalise relations with Israel, with other countries joining later. Somaliland enjoys a strategic position on the Gulf of Aden, and has its own money, passports and police force. Born in 1991 after a war of independence against former dictator General Siad Barre, it has grappled with decades of isolation ever since. With a population of almost six million, the self-proclaimed republic has recently been at the centre of several regional disputes involving Somalia, Ethiopia and Egypt. Last year, an agreement between landlocked Ethiopia and Somaliland to lease a stretch of coastline for a port and military base angered Somalia.

Turkish Authorities Say they Have arrested Suspected ISIS Member Planning New Year's Attacks
Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
Turkish authorities said Friday that they have apprehended a suspected member of the extremist ISIS group who was planning attacks on New Year's celebrations. State-run Anadolu Agency reported that Ibrahim Burtakucin was captured in a joint operation carried out by police and the National Intelligence Agency in the southeastern city of Malatya. Security officials told Anadolu that Burtakucin was in contact with many ISIS sympathizers in Türkiye and abroad and was also looking for an opportunity to join the ongoing fighting in conflict zones. Authorities also seized digital materials and banned publications belonging to ISIS during the raid of his home. The arrest was reported a day after Istanbul's prosecutor's office said Turkish authorities carried out simultaneous raids in which they detained over a hundred suspected members of the militant ISIS group who were allegedly planning attacks against Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 26-27/2025
Few on the 'Far Right' Turn Against the Jews
Pierre Rehov/Gatestone Institute/December 26, 2025
Normalize the slur here, wink at a trope there, then insist critics are "overreacting." That is how the ideological poison spreads.
When someone habitually slanders Jews and then complains of being "silenced," the right needs to respond. Criticism is not censorship, decency does not require "consensus," and the Jewish people are not "clicks."
Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes represent regress masquerading as rebellion. They do not speak for the right; they speak for themselves and for the algorithms that reward outrage and sounding outrageous.
Many, maybe most, prominent people on the right — from President Donald Trump to Pastor John Hagee to Thomas Sowell to Marco Rubio — stand with Israel because they stand with the West, with victims of jihad, and with a commitment to preserve the values of individual freedom, equal justice under the law and freedom of speech. The right should say so — clearly, repeatedly and without apology — and should quarantine the grifters who would trade civilization's cause for "clicks."
Many, maybe most, prominent people on the right — from President Donald Trump to Pastor John Hagee to Thomas Sowell to Marco Rubio — stand with Israel because they stand with the West, with victims of jihad, and with a commitment to preserve the values of individual freedom, equal justice under the law and freedom of speech. The right should say so — clearly, repeatedly and without apology — and should quarantine the grifters who would trade civilization's cause for "clicks." Pictured: Trump and Rubio, at a meeting with China's President Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on October 30, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
It's back. Not the left's usual anti-Israel vitriol — but a creeping, winking strain of anti-Jewish hostility rising inside corners of the American "right." This chill is often dressed up as "anti-globalism" or "just asking questions" -- about Israel. There is nothing new about recycling century-old tropes, flirting with blood libels, or mainstreaming a Holocaust denier because he brings clicks. The American right — at its best — defends the Judeo-Christian foundations of the West, honors facts, allies, and moral clarity. This heritage means standing with Israel and against antisemites, even when they pretend to be on the side of all that is "good."
Start with Candace Owens. Sometime during 2023–2024 she crossed line after line — defending Kanye West ("Ye") after his antisemitic rants, insinuating medieval slanders, and taunting Jews who objected — until the Daily Wire website publicly ended its relationship with her in March 2024. It was not about "free speech," it was about a pattern of tolerating intolerance that would not have been accepted if it had been aimed at any ethnic group other than Jews.
By late 2024, the watchdog group StopAntisemitism, citing a dossier of repeat offenses, dubbed Owens its "Antisemite of the Year." Normalize the slur here, wink at a trope there, then insist critics are "overreacting." That is how the ideological poison spreads.
Now consider the Tucker Carlson moment. On Oct. 27, 2025, on his show, he hosted Nick Fuentes — a open white supremacist and Holocaust denier. Carlson's interview allowed Fuentes' antisemitic bile and even bizarre praise of both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin to waft by without pushback. The immediate reaction on the right was significant: many serious conservatives complained.
Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro called the interview what it was and blasted Carlson's posture as "intellectual cowardice." That critique from most of the mainstream right told young viewers: this is a red line.
Institutional confusion made things worse. The president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, initially defended Carlson publicly; the resulting backlash — again, from many on the right — was swift. Even mainstream broadcast outlets framed the episode as a dividing line: are we a movement that tolerates Jew-haters, or one that draws red lines?
If you want a picture of the broader reach, the website Tablet captured it crisply: antisemitism on parts of the right, they wrote has metastasized under an "anti-globalist" mask, where new slurs and code words — "globalist cabal", "Israel first", "Soros" — do the same work older slurs did. Tablet also seem to view on the Carlson-Fuentes moment as a test for Jewish and conservative institutions.
What about Candace Owens's defenders who insist she was "canceled for criticizing Israel"? Not at all. Major outlets chronicled months of explicitly antisemitic provocations, not a good-faith policy dispute. Even the media sympathetic to "anti-establishment" voices noted the obvious: there is a canyon between arguing to cut foreign aid and amplifying blood-libel smears.
To its credit, the American right has no shortage of adults in the room. Many intellectuals, Jewish advocates, and elected Republicans openly condemned the Carlson-Fuentes stunt. You could watch the split in real time: one faction explained that freedom of speech does not require private companies and organization to provide a platform for unreconstructed bigots; the other faction accused "the establishment" of "silencing us."
Here is a test for readers: does your "anti-globalism" end up obsessing over Israel or "the Jews" every time? If yes, it is not policy analysis — it is a tell about you. By contrast, a responsible America-first position can argue about budgets, missions and burdens without smuggling in scapegoats. That is the difference between Marco Rubio's hawkish clarity on Hamas and Fuentes's "Groyper" circus.
The fact is that Republican support for Israel remains high, even though younger cohorts are more skeptical. Pew Research in April 2025 found solid GOP confidence in Israel's leadership and warmer views of Israelis than Democrats expressed. In October, Pew found the same partisan gap, even as overall U.S. favorables toward Israel declined. The point: when far-right influencers target Jews, they are out of step with rank-and-file Republican voters — and not speaking for them.
Contrast the fringe with actual governance. President Donald Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem (2018), recognized Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights (2019), and brokered the Abraham Accords — historic normalization agreements reshaping the strategic map. Those facts remain the gold standard for a pro-ally foreign policy grounded in U.S. interests.
The momentum has continued. Fox New reporting from this year details efforts to expand the Abraham Accords — with new candidates openly discussed — precisely because strength plus moral clarity wins respect in the region. Whatever one's partisan leanings, anti-terror alignment and normalization advanced when Washington projected resolve rather than courting applause in European salons.
If you want the mirror image from the other side of the aisle, consider how leftist media outlets have covered the Carlson-Fuentes interview. The Nation warned that elements of right-wing anti-Zionism are curdling into open antisemitism and explicitly cited the Heritage/Carlson controversy as symptomatic. You do not have to endorse that magazine's broader politics to acknowledge that when both Tablet and The Nation criticize the same sewer, it probably stinks.
One more word about Owens: When someone habitually slanders Jews and then complains of being "silenced," the right needs to respond. Criticism is not censorship, decency does not require "consensus," and the Jewish people are not "clicks."
Meanwhile, serious national security policy continues: confronting jihadist groups, backing Israel's right to self-defense, and leveraging diplomacy (the Abraham Accords) to isolate terrorists. That framework does not require romanticizing any foreign government. It does require rejecting those who would turn "Zionist" into a slur and "globalist" into a dog whistle for "Jew."
Bottom line: Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes represent regress masquerading as rebellion. They do not speak for the right; they speak for themselves and for the algorithms that reward outrage and sounding outrageous. Many, maybe most, prominent people on the right — from Trump to Pastor John Hagee to Thomas Sowell to Rubio — stand with Israel because they stand with the West, with victims of jihad, and with a commitment to preserve the values of individual freedom, equal justice under the law and freedom of speech. The right should say so — clearly, repeatedly and without apology — and should quarantine the grifters who would trade civilization's cause for "clicks."
*Pierre Rehov, who holds a law degree from Paris-Assas, is a French reporter, novelist and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of six novels, including "Beyond Red Lines", " The Third Testament" and "Red Eden", translated from French. His latest essay on the aftermath of the October 7 massacre " 7 octobre - La riposte " became a bestseller in France.As a filmmaker, he has produced and directed 17 documentaries, many photographed at high risk in Middle Eastern war zones, and focusing on terrorism, media bias, and the persecution of Christians. His latest documentary, "Pogrom(s)" highlights the context of ancient Jew hatred within Muslim civilization as the main force behind the October 7 massacre.
© 2025 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute.

Iraq between Two Dates
Mustafa Fahs/Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
In the 22 years that passed between September 11, 2001, and October 7, 2023, many things changed and much remained the same in Iraq. It continued to occupy a crucial geopolitical position, and the nature of its politics changed. After 9/11, Iraq became the arena for a globalization of regional politics, and with the attack of October 7, it became a stage for the regionalization of international politics. In the first period, Washington surged forward to become the only international power directly shaping regional affairs as it sought retribution for a terrorist attack that would have global repercussions. Assuming that part of the problem lay within the region, it toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime and an Ottoman legacy, which had governance in Iraq for over a century, without altering the geography.
In the second period, when Tel Aviv succeeded in framing the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation as an existential war, or a second war of independence, its narrative presented its retaliation as a reaction to an unprovoked assault rather than the result of an accumulation of its own actions. It sought to change the nature of the Palestinian struggle and render this international cause into a regional question managed solely by itself and to become a regional force capable of influencing international politics.
Confronted with Israel’s hubris, Iraq has once again become a focal point of regional geopolitics, not in line with Tel Aviv’s plans, which are rejected by every influential actor in the region. Indeed, every regional power seeks to prevent Iraq from becoming the arena of yet another international-regional conflict, encouraging its authorities to adapt to the shifts of October 7.
These shifts have upended Iran's regional strategy, which had itself been one ramification of 9/11 and has had a particularly consequential impact on Iraq in general and the Shiite community in particular - the largest demographic bloc in Iraq and one that would go on to run the state. State-building in Iraq remains in limbo, but that is not solely the fault of Shiite political actors, though they must shoulder more responsibility for changing Iraq’s political course than others.Today, Shiite political forces must meet intertwined domestic and regional obligations. They preserved their authority but failed to develop a national project. The ideological and militant project they did develop is at a turning point: non-state actors have proven ineffective and become an existential threat. Decoupling political authority and armed actors, after the lines had been blurred, has become necessary. As for the state and the Iraqi authorities, the current regional and international conditions impose a different approach. The habitual disregard for contradictions cannot continue. The issues in Iraq are complex, and the Shiite majority, which controls the state institutions, must go further than the “dialogue of the brave” and make “concessions of the brave.” This begins with choosing a prime minister who can be a leader rather than a chieftain or an apparatchik: a statesman who runs the government and leads its ministers to serve the country rather than subordinating it. Political and financial obligations pose particularly grave risks that could backfire on everyone if left unaddressed.
In sum, the 2003 system is losing its safety valves: Tehran is in retreat, Washington’s approach has shifted, Tel Aviv’s hubris continues, and Najaf maintains its distance. A single misstep is enough either to topple what remains of the regional order born of 9/11 and reshape the status quo

Midnight Hammer in 2025: Trump Ends Half Measures on Iran
London: Adil Al-Salmi/Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
With Donald Trump back in the Oval Office in early 2025, it took less than a year for his revamped “maximum pressure” campaign to set the pace for Iran. What began as an argument over reviving the nuclear deal quickly gave way to a far starker reality: war on Iranian soil, for only the second time since the founding of the Islamic Republic, nearly four decades after a conflict whose scars still weigh heavily on the country’s collective memory. In fact, the clouds of war had been gathering over Tehran well before Trump began his path back to the White House. Hopes of reviving the nuclear agreement faded, while Iran’s uranium enrichment accelerated, a trajectory that culminated in the 12-day war and exposed the limits of Iranian deterrence in the face of Israeli preemptive strikes later joined by the United States, followed by the reimposition of UN sanctions under the snapback mechanism.
Yet this trajectory did not begin in Washington but in Tehran itself. Months before the US elections, the ruling establishment bet on a “tactical pause” by electing Masoud Pezeshkian, who took office in August 2024 as a reformist president with a less confrontational tone toward the West, presenting himself as a manager of an “economic war,” not a missile adventure.
He selected a foreign policy team seasoned in negotiating rooms, led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a signal interpreted in the West as early preparation for a new phase of talks and an attempt to lower tensions and recalibrate the nuclear file for two contradictory scenarios: either a Democratic administration under Kamala Harris seeking to carry on the legacy of Obama and Biden, or Trump’s return in a harsher version of “maximum pressure” to close the Iran file on his own terms. Donald Trump returned to the presidency with familiar charisma to an American scene marked by greater international tension and an open war between Israel and Iran’s proxies, scrambling calculations in Tehran. The man whose record includes the decision to assassinate Qasem Soleimani was not an unknown figure to the ruling elite, but a tested adversary returning with a full record of withdrawing from the nuclear deal and escalating sanctions.The assessment, therefore, settled on the view that he would not change his core approach but would seek to expand it: maximum pressure in the economy and finance, accompanied by a clear political message that any Iranian retreat must be tangible across the nuclear, missile and regional files alike.Under this assessment, Tehran’s room for maneuver appeared to be narrowing, even before indirect negotiation rounds began.
The return of “maximum pressure”
Less than two weeks after taking the oath of office, Donald Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum on Feb. 4, 2025, relaunching the “maximum pressure” policy in a tougher and more detailed form. The memorandum laid out three main objectives: denying Iran any pathway to a nuclear weapon or intercontinental ballistic missiles, dismantling its networks and proxies designated on Western terrorism lists, and curbing the development of its ballistic missile arsenal and asymmetric capabilities. At the executive level, the Treasury Department was tasked with applying maximum economic pressure by tightening sanctions enforcement and issuing guidance warning the shipping, insurance and port sectors against dealing with Tehran or its proxies. The State Department was tasked with amending or revoking previous waivers, collaborating with allies to implement the reimposition of UN sanctions under the snapback mechanism, and reducing Iranian oil exports to zero. In parallel, the Justice Department was charged with pursuing Iranian-linked financial and logistical networks and front companies operating inside the United States. In this way, Trump’s long-standing slogan on not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon was turned into a comprehensive framework that fused economic pressure, domestic security and diplomacy into a single track aimed at Tehran. On the Iranian side, the initial response was a mix of denial and caution. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei did not shut the door on negotiations, but neither did he throw it wide open. He allowed an indirect negotiating channel to proceed, beginning with a message from Donald Trump delivered by a special envoy, to which Tehran replied with a brief note. From that channel emerged five rounds of indirect talks between Trump’s team, led by Steve Witkoff, and the Iranian team, headed by Abbas Araghchi, with European and regional mediators participating. Publicly, Araghchi spoke of a “readiness for responsible talks if Washington honors its commitments,” and of the possibility of reaching a “balanced agreement” that would reintegrate Iran into the global economy. Behind the scenes, the Iranian team sought to widen its room for maneuver by playing on differences between Washington and some European capitals, and by probing sensitivities within Trump’s own camp, particularly toward its more hardline figures, in the hope that these contradictions could translate into greater flexibility in the terms of a deal.
Five rounds of talks
Despite the diplomatic choreography, the fault lines were clear from the outset and they barely shifted across all five rounds of talks. Each session returned to the same central dispute, underscoring how far apart Washington and Tehran remained beneath the incremental gains recorded on paper. Washington insisted that Iran be stripped of its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent, near the nuclear threshold, that the International Atomic Energy Agency be restored to a full monitoring role at all sensitive sites, and that any subsequent track include a clear timetable to address the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles and key elements of its regional activity. Tehran, for its part, clung to familiar priorities: the lifting of oil and financial sanctions as a precondition, guarantees that no future US administration would withdraw from a new agreement, the exclusion of the missile file from any binding text, and rejection of labeling its ties with regional allies as “destabilizing behavior.” Each round, therefore, ended with much the same outcome: technical progress at the margins of draft texts, and political deadlock at their core.In the background, Iran’s relationship with the International Atomic Energy Agency was steadily sliding into a more confrontational zone. For years, the agency has sought explanations for uranium traces found at undeclared sites, as well as the restoration of monitoring cameras and measuring devices that were gradually disabled or removed after Washington withdrew from the 2015 accord.
By 2025, Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent had reached a level that agency experts said significantly shortens the technical time needed to reach the nuclear threshold, should there be political will. From the perspective of Western capitals, the program had become a mix of material advances and political opacity. From Tehran’s vantage point, the agency file had become an extension of the “maximum pressure” campaign, this time waged through legal and technical means.
The 12-day war
Along a parallel track, the entire region was still absorbing the aftershocks of Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Flood opened the door to nearly two years of high-intensity shadow warfare between Israel and Iran’s proxies, stretching from the Lebanese border to the Red Sea. With each Israeli strike on convoys or sites linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, the traditional deterrence equation lost some of the ambiguity that had long been part of its strength. Tehran, however, clung to managing the confrontation through proxies and avoiding direct engagement from its own territory until a moment that upended that calculus entirely, the 12-day war.For the first time on this scale, fire was exchanged directly between Iran and Israel over Iranian soil itself. This struck the heart of the doctrine entrenched by Qasem Soleimani, which stipulates taking the battle beyond Iran’s borders and keeping proxy fronts alight so that war would not reach the country’s interior.
In the opening days of the 12-day war, Israel carried out a series of focused strikes inside Iran, targeting missile bases and key command centers, along with facilities tied to the enrichment chain and some research and development sites. In that initial round, the IRGC lost a number of senior field commanders, along with what officials described as “brains” of the nuclear program, physicists, engineers and technical officials, in a blow that hit the military and technical leadership more than the physical infrastructure alone. Days later, the confrontation escalated further with the launch of an operation dubbed Midnight Hammer, involving stealth bombers and cyber operations that disrupted parts of Iran’s early warning and surveillance systems. The operation targeted pivotal sites in the enrichment cycle, centers for manufacturing and assembling centrifuges, and sensitive units within the nuclear infrastructure, forcing Iran to suspend some activities for technical and security reasons. Official rhetoric focused on missiles that struck targets inside Israel and on the “imposition of a ceasefire,” but calmer assessments within decision-making circles were more restrained. The nuclear program was not erased, but it underwent a severe stress test that showed Iran’s current deterrence posture does not prevent a focused strike on the core of the nuclear project when political and military conditions align. The military shock accelerated the exposure of fault lines within the ruling elite. Pezeshkian publicly warned of the “risk of a second war on Iranian soil,” hinting that “the other side has shown its readiness to strike nuclear facilities themselves,” an indirect signal that ignoring the negotiation track now carries rising security costs. Hardliners, by contrast, argued that any reassessment after the war would amount to “rewarding the enemy” and casting doubt on the value of “resistance” as a strategic choice, rejecting any link between battlefield losses and a return to the negotiating table.
Internal divisions
Against this backdrop, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei chose to respond to the shock of war by reshuffling advisory circles rather than changing course. He appointed Ali Larijani, a close confidant and former parliament speaker, to head the Supreme National Security Council, and approved the creation of a new “Defense Council” under its umbrella. The body brings together military commanders and senior government and security officials to provide more integrated assessments of the war, the nuclear program and the negotiating track. On the surface, the move aimed to broaden consultation after the 12-day war. In practice, it reflected a mix of acknowledgment that earlier calculations had fallen short and insistence on keeping final decisions within a narrow circle that manages both deterrence and diplomacy. That circle operates within limits set externally by “maximum pressure” and internally by the imperative of preserving regime cohesion. Postwar differences were not confined to assessing military performance. They spilled into a deeper question: what to do with the nuclear file after Midnight Hammer. In Tehran, one line of thinking began to take shape around deepening what officials describe as “managed nuclear ambiguity.”The idea stops short of a formal withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and instead seeks a gray-zone posture, a large stockpile of enriched uranium, reduced oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and deliberately vague signals about “capability” without an explicit declaration of intent to build a weapon. Another camp warned that ambiguity without a clear negotiating path could turn from a deterrent into an invitation for further preemptive strikes and the normalization of attacks on nuclear facilities. Between the two logics, the working position settled into a narrow formula: no readiness for “zero enrichment” concessions demanded by Donald Trump, but no decision to burn bridges entirely. Instead, a temporary management of the crisis while awaiting shifts in the balance of power.
Return of UN sanctions
Amid this debate, European powers moved to activate the snapback mechanism and restore UN sanctions on Iran, citing noncompliance with its nuclear commitments. Britain, France and Germany pushed the file to the Security Council, reviving six previous resolutions. The result left Tehran in an ambiguous position. Legally, international restrictions on arms, missiles and asset freezes returned. In practice, Iran, along with Beijing and Moscow, continued to treat the landscape as largely unchanged. In Iran’s domestic discourse, the paradox was summed up in a terse phrase: UN sanctions are “present and absent at the same time.”For banks and investors, however, they were present enough to freeze risk appetite. By the end of 2025, the toll of Trump’s return weighed heavily on Tehran. Five rounds of indirect talks produced no real breakthrough. The 12-day war exposed gaps in the deterrence system.
UN sanctions returned to the fore. The rial slid to record lows, translating daily into market prices, fuel costs and the food basket. At the same time, the Iranian leadership held to two fixed points: an explicit rejection of “zero enrichment” as demanded by the Trump administration, and a calibrated refusal to open a full-scale confrontation with the United States and its allies.
In that sense, what Tehran calls “strategic patience” increasingly resembled a state of strategic paralysis. Between mounting external pressure and a shrinking internal margin for maneuver, Iran entered 2026 unable to return to the negotiating table from a position of strength and unwilling to acknowledge that the cost of staying the course is rising politically, economically and in security terms. The 12-day war and snapback did not bring the two sides closer so much as reveal a shared belief that time favors each of them. Washington is betting that a battered economy and collapsing currency will eventually force Tehran to accept a harsh deal. Part of Iran’s elite, meanwhile, is wagering that no US administration will bear the cost of another full-scale war, and that waiting out Trump’s term is cheaper than submitting to his terms. Reading the year ahead thus becomes an exercise in mapping the boundaries of this paralysis and weighing the open scenarios facing Tehran, between a second war, a managed truce, and a coerced deal imposed under the ceiling of “maximum pressure.”
Three possible paths
From this point, Iran faces three main trajectories in 2026. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive and could overlap over time. The first is a slow slide toward a second confrontation if efforts to rebuild missile and nuclear capabilities continue under pressure and frictions recur in the Strait of Hormuz, under pretexts such as refusing ship inspections or responding to new sanctions. In such a scenario, Washington and Tel Aviv could conclude that acting now is less costly than waiting, with any future strike extending beyond facilities and bases to target higher levels of power, in an attempt to strike at the center of decision-making rather than its periphery. The second path is a renewed wave of protests and social and economic unrest, fueled by a vicious cycle of currency collapse, rising food and fuel prices, and the erosion of a middle class that has historically been the main reservoir for gradual reform. In this scenario, “maximum pressure” shifts from an external lever to an internal detonator. The system would face a fraught equation: further hardening on the nuclear and missile files would mean deeper contraction in daily life and broader public anger, while a sudden retreat under Trump’s terms would be read on the street as a belated admission of the failure of the previous course, opening the door to a new protest cycle that is harder to contain and more directly tied to the cost of Iran’s regional project. The third path, and the most likely in the short term, is an attempt to buy time through an unwritten “mutual freeze.”
That would mean an effective but undeclared slowdown in high-level enrichment, limited windows of technical cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and tighter control over the tempo of the “axis” to avoid shocks on the scale of the 12-day war. In return, the United States would accept managing the situation on a basis of containment rather than settlement, while keeping US and UN sanctions in place. This path resolves nothing fundamentally, but allows each side to claim it has not crossed its red lines, even as Iran’s economic attrition continues, deterrence remains incomplete, and the risk of escalation lingers in the background.
Looking back at the year 2025, it can be seen as the moment when Trump’s policies transitioned from a theoretical threat to a concrete reality across Iran’s geography and economy. A joint military strike narrowed the margin of the nuclear program. UN sanctions returned through snapback. Pressure tightened on oil exports and financing networks. Washington sought to redefine Iran’s place in US strategy as a constrained adversary rather than a rising power. Tehran responded with a mix of nuclear ambiguity, calibrated management of the “axis,” and a bet on time. Iran thus enters 2026 trapped in a formula set by the “maximum pressure” memorandum: a system that cannot afford a full-scale war, yet cannot easily enter a settlement on its adversary’s terms.he real challenge is no longer how Tehran emerges from Trump’s shadow, but whether it can, under this tightening vise, produce a third strategy that moves beyond the twin options of slow-motion escalation or passive waiting, before time itself, rather than negotiations or strikes, imposes the shape of the ending.

Question: What sort of New Year’s resolution should a Christian make?
GotQuestions.org?/December 26/2025
Answer: The practice of making New Year’s resolutions goes back over 3,000 years to the ancient Babylonians. There is just something about the start of a new year that gives us the feeling of a fresh start and a new beginning. In reality, there is no difference between December 31 and January 1. Nothing mystical occurs at midnight on December 31. The Bible does not speak for or against the concept of New Year’s resolutions. However, if a Christian determines to make a New Year’s resolution, what kind of resolution should he or she make? Common New Year’s resolutions are commitments to quit smoking, to stop drinking, to manage money more wisely, and to spend more time with family. By far, the most common New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, in conjunction with exercising more and eating more healthily. These are all good goals to set. However, 1 Timothy 4:8 instructs us to keep exercise in perspective: “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” The vast majority of New Year’s resolutions, even among Christians, are in relation to physical things. This should not be. Many Christians make New Year’s resolutions to pray more, to read the Bible every day, and to attend church more regularly. These are fantastic goals. However, these New Year’s resolutions fail just as often as the non-spiritual resolutions, because there is no power in a New Year’s resolution. Resolving to start or stop doing a certain activity has no value unless you have the proper motivation for stopping or starting that activity. For example, why do you want to read the Bible every day? Is it to honor God and grow spiritually, or is it because you have just heard that it is a good thing to do? Why do you want to lose weight? Is it to honor God with your body, or is it for vanity, to honor yourself? Philippians 4:13 tells us, “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” John 15:5 declares, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” If God is the center of your New Year’s resolution, it has chance for success, depending on your commitment to it. If it is God’s will for something to be fulfilled, He will enable you to fulfill it. If a resolution is not God-honoring and/or is not in agreement with God’s Word, we will not receive God’s help in fulfilling the resolution. So, what sort of New Year’s resolution should a Christian make? Here are some suggestions: (1) pray to the Lord for wisdom (James 1:5) regarding what resolutions, if any, He would have you make; (2) pray for wisdom as to how to fulfill the goals God gives you; (3) rely on God’s strength to help you; (4) find an accountability partner who will help you and encourage you; (5) don’t become discouraged with occasional failures; instead, allow them to motivate you further; (6) don’t become proud or vain, but give God the glory. Psalm 37:5-6 says, “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.”

Looking back at Israel and Iran's ‘12-day war’: Direct conflict breaks out between arch-enemies
David GORMEZANO/France 24/December 26, 2025
The threat of direct conflict between Israel and Iran had been brewing for 20 years.
Throughout his long political career, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had repeatedly singled out the Iranian Republic as Israel’s number one enemy, saying its nuclear program had one goal: the destruction of the Jewish state. Meanwhile Iran had long called for Israel’s destruction and provided arms for its opponents in Gaza and Lebanon. What was unclear was how a conflict between the two adversaries – both of which have considerable military might – could play out. The question was answered in the early hours of June 13, 2025, as explosions were heard in the Iranian capital Tehran and Netanyahu announced that operation “Rising Lion” had begun. The armed conflict between the two arch enemies drew in neighbouring countries Jordan and Qatar as well as the US, whose President Donald Trump dubbed it the “12-day war”. Israel: Striking the heart of Iran’s regime and its nuclear program. Throughout 2024, Iran and Israel had been launching small-scale attacks on each other, with Tehran firing missiles and drones at Israel while Tel Aviv’s fighter jets targeted Iran’s missile launchers and aerial defences. But the tit-for-tat skirmishes paled in comparison to Israel’s surprise operation launched on June 13. Overnight, 200 planes targeted military sites throughout Iran and the regime’s major nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan. Within a few hours, Israel had seized control of Iranian airspace, and in the 12 days that followed, its air force carried out operations across Iran’s territory. Israel launched 360 attacks in 27 Iranian provinces throughout the 12-day war, with a third striking Tehran, according to US-based monitor ACLED. Part of the success of operation “Rising Lion” came down to Israel’s use of of First Person View (FPV) drones, which can be operated remotely using an onboard camera. They were flown by Mossad agents working undercover inside Iran to target sensitive infrastructure and high-profile members of the regime from the conflict's first hours. By the evening of June 13, Israel had overwhelmed Iran’s air defence system, carried out strikes on several Iranian cities and eliminated at least twenty of the regime’s senior officers. These included Iran’s highest-ranking military officer, Mohammad Bagher, and Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief Hossein Salami. Nine of Iran’s top scientists were killed by targeted strikes in what French newspaper Le Monde described as a “decisive blow” to Tehran’s nuclear program.
Over the next 12 days, a total of 16 scientists would be killed by Israel.
Days after first launching the attack, Netanyahu confirmed that Israel was trying to eliminate Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump said on June 17 that the US forces knew “exactly” where Khamenei was hiding but would not try to eliminate him – “at least not for now”.
Ultimately, Israel did not topple Iran’s longtime leader, but its 12-day assault on Iran did considerably weaken the regime’s military might. Read moreAli Khamenei: Backed into a corner, Iran’s ruthless leader faces fight for survival. “We have set Iran's nuclear project back by years, and the same goes for its missile program,” said Israeli army chief of staff Eyal Zamir on June 25.Iran's stockpile of 2,500 ballistic missiles was reduced to a maximum of 1,500, and two-thirds of its missile launchers were destroyed, according to figures from the Israeli army. In the Iranian capital, strikes targeted government buildings, state media outlets, universities and the infamous Evin prison. They also hit civilians. Iran’s health ministry said that 610 civilians were killed and 4,700 wounded during the 12-day conflict. It did not say how many members of the military had been killed or wounded. Read more‘It's the civilians who will pay the price’: Iranians prepare for the worst after Israeli strikes
Iran: An assault on Israeli cities
As Israel launched its attack on Iran, Tehran was quick to respond.
Khamenei issued a statement on June 13 assuring Iranians that Israel would “not remain unscathed from the consequences” of its attack and that the Iranian response would “not be half-measured”.By the evening of June 13, Iran launched Operation Honest Promise 3, firing Shahed drones and hypersonic missiles towards Israel. Air raid sirens sounded across the country as missiles flew across the sky above Jerusalem and strikes caused fires in buildings in Tel Aviv. Iran fired least 150 missiles overnight, according to estimates from the Israeli army, most of which were intercepted with help from the United States and Jordan. Major targets included Israel's “Pentagon”, the Kirya, and the country’s nuclear facilities. At least two people were killed and around 60 wounded, according to emergency services. Over the coming days, the Israeli army banned the sharing of videos or photos on social media showing the damage caused by Iranian bombing,But missile salvos caused significant damage in Israeli towns and cities, an oil refinery in Haifa, power plants, water treatment plants, Soroka Hospital in Beer-Sheva and the research centre at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Iran fired some 550 missiles and 1,000 drones, 90 percent of which were intercepted by Israel and its allies, according to the Israeli army. Some 36 direct hits on populated areas killed at least 28 civilians and injured 3,000, according to ACLED. Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz mapped the damage caused by Iranian missiles in urban centres, finding that 480 buildings were damaged in Tel Aviv across five separate sites, “obliterating” some neighbourhoods.In the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, 237 buildings were damaged across three sites, with around ten being severely damaged. In Bat Yam, another Tel Aviv suburb, 78 buildings were damaged by a single strike, with 22 of them subsequently condemned for demolition. Israelis submitted 40,000 compensation claims to the authorities for damage caused by Iran’s attacks, but the population as a whole were overwhelmingly supportive of their prime minister's decision to attack Iran.
The US: ‘Bunker buster’ bombs and a ceasefire
As Israel and Iran traded strikes, the US delayed joining the war alongside Tel Aviv. “I may do it, I may not do it,”Trump said on June 18 – day five of the conflict. “Nobody knows what I'm going to do.”In previous months Trump had urged Netanyahu not to attack Iran as he sought to reach a nuclear deal with Tehran, but was quick to praise Israel’s strikes on the first day of the war as “excellent” and “very successful”. Meanwhile, Israel was pressing Trump to provide it with “bunker buster” bombs to deliver a fatal blow to Iran's nuclear programme. The US finally deployed its GBU-57 bombs – 13-ton laser-guided munitions designed to destroy underground bunkers – overnight on June 21 as part of operation "Midnight Hammer". Seven B2 stealth bombers carrying the munitions took off from the US state of Missouri and entered Iranian airspace, where they targeted the two main sites for the production and storage of enriched uranium buried dozens of metres underground at the Fordo and Natanz sites. Hidden in desert areas in central Iran, defences at the two sites had already been weakened by Israel's air strikes. At Fordo, 12 bunker-buster bombs were dropped successively on two ventilation shafts, according to the US military. Two other bombs were dropped on the Natanz site, while US Navy submarines fired two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Nuclear Technology Center in Isfahan.
Trump announced that Iran's main nuclear sites had been “completely and totally destroyed” by the strikes, although US intelligence later contradicted this claim.
Two days later, Iran retaliated by bombing the largest US base in the Middle East, Al-Udeid in Qatar. But Tehran had warned Washington in advance of the strikes, and the dozen missiles caused no American casualties. Claiming the US had achieved its objectives by preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, Trump took to his social media network on June 24 to declare an end to the war. “It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE… an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World,” he wrote on Truth Social. Israel and Iran continued to launch attacks on each other for a few hours, with final strikes targeting the Iranian capital and Beer-Sheva in southern Israel, before fighting stopped – and both sides claimed victory. Netanyahu claimed a "historic" triumph for his country and warned that Israel would “thwart” any future attempts by Iran to revive its nuclear program.Iran's top security body, meanwhile, said the Islamic Republic's forces had "compelled" Israel to "unilaterally" stand down.
*This article was adapted from the original in French by Joanna York.

2026: A Year of Clarifications?
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/December 26/2025
In some of the ancient civilizations each year was designated with a label rather than a number. For example, there was a Year of the Locust, a Year of the Flood, or a Year of Golden Harvest. Following that tradition, what label do you think would suit 2025?One suggestion is: the Year of Impressions. That label could be justified with reference to a dozen abortive attempts at peace-making across the globe, shaky compromises on tariffs and trade, and inertia disguised as super activity. In the year ending, leaders have spent more time flying from one place to another, making speeches, giving TV interviews, cutting ribbons and pressing flesh than coming to grips with core issues here and now. Impressionism is a school of painting in which real objects are never presented in a photographic way. You see a shape that looks like a tree but isn’t one and a human-like silhouette that might be a Flamenco dancer but isn’t. Thus, in impressionistic politics you get words and deeds that hint at realities without actually fixing them in a frame. Some examples: the old-World Order is supposed to be crumbling, but closer examination could be seen stable in its wobbly state. The United States is supposed to be leaving NATO but is actually increasing military presence in Europe. A tantalizing peace deal in Ukraine seems within reach but always slipping away like a lithe fish.A shiny plan to settle the Israel-Palestine conflict is unveiled but quickly dissolves in deepening shadows. The Islamic Republic in Iran appears chastened but frequently returns with a more defiant rhetoric.China is on the edge of invading Taiwan, but each time timidly pulls back. Virtue-signaling was another key feature of 2025 with various countries and dozens of public figures not to mention ant Tom, Dick and Harry beating their chests about this or that real or imaginary victim with calls of genocide, crimes against humanity and boycotts as background music.
In other words, 2025 was a year of political charades.
But, what about 2026?
One obvious answer is that the charade may continue.
Politics is easier to practice as the art of gesticulation than as a craft that Aristotle saw as the apogee of human ingenuity. Nevertheless, at the risk of being seen as a Panglossian pundit one might hope for 2026 to become a year of clarifications with the impressionistic images drawn here and here fleshing out as tangible realities.For that hope to come true a number of things must happen. President Donald J Trump ought to spend less time tending his Social Truth account and focus more on a winning strategy for the coming midterm elections. His opponents are already ordering champagne in the expectation that he will lose and become a lame-duck. However, the opposite seems more likely with Trump winning bug and a Democrat Party paralyzed by its dumb left-wing suffering another historic defeat. As recent elections in Latin America showed, Trumpian politics still has wind in its sails across the globe. The European Union that may now be labeled “the sick man of Europe” may be forced to re-think its visibly defective structure in order to reclaim a global role commensurate with its economic power and cultural prestige.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky needs to stop collecting air miles and focus more on cleansing his stables and preparing for elections. There are wounds that cannot be instantly healed with magic potion and the best that can be done is go stop the bleeding. NATO isn’t dancing towards its grave but to remain relevant it ought to resist temptations to appear as an independent player. In that context Secretary General Mark Rutte’s recent speech in which he seemed to believe that NATO is already at war with Russia was a surprising faux-pas from a politician known for his foxy caution.
For his part Russian President Vladimir Putin must realize that the war in Ukraine cannot end on his terms. In China President Xi Jinping is beginning to realize that he may have other fish to fry than annexing Taiwan. Away from headlines an emerging new business elite cocooned by the Communist Party is beginning to feel strong enough to murmur criticism of aspects of Xi’s policy.Japan is reorganizing to enter the global scene as a politically active player while unveiling an ambitious program to correct its disastrous demographic deficit.In the Middle East, talk of a two-state solution will continue pending the emergence of a putative coexistence formula. Dozens of global companies are already licking their lips thinking of juicy contracts to rebuild Syria. That, however, won’t be possible without first stabilizing Lebanon as a sovereign state to host the regional headquarters of companies mobilized to rebuild Syria when and if its new government succeeds in running its writ throughout the nation. Iran remains an enigma wrapped in mystery. In Persian folk-tales protagonists often reach a crossroad called “What Shall I Do Now?”Still grappling with an identity crisis Türkiye under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems like a fountain, still surging higher and higher. But we know that fountains fall when they reach their highest point of surge.A caveat: The above must be treated as observations, not predictions.
Happy 2026.

Selected Face Book & X tweets for /December 26, 2025
Michel Hajji Georgiou
Contrary to popular ideas, the Palestinian question is neither locked in a standstill by historical fatality, nor by incredibly atavian hatred. It is methodically neutralized by a convergence of interests between extremists who, while clashing in blood, share an obsession: to prevent the emergence of a political solution based on mutual recognition and equal rights. On one hand, an Israeli power captive of absolute security logic, transformed over the years into a government ideology. On the other, Islamic movements that thrive on the collapse of politics, the sacrificial of violence and the confiscation of the Palestinian cause for the benefit of regional agendas. Between the two, a hostage population, and a deliberately sabotaged prospect for peace. (... ) My new editorial on the Palestinian question - you can read it here (in French - the rest of the languages are available on the site):
https://levanttime.com/.../4651084e-ae14-45d8-8ef3...

Donald J. Trump
Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly. We no longer have Open Borders, Men in Women’s Sports, Transgender for Everyone, or Weak Law Enforcement. What we do have is a Record Stock Market and 401K’s, Lowest Crime numbers in decades, No Inflation, and yesterday, a 4.3 GDP, two points better than expected. Tariffs have given us Trillions of Dollars in Growth and Prosperity, and the strongest National Security we have ever had. We are respected again, perhaps like never before. God Bless America!!! President DJT

Michel Hajji Georgiou
As every year between Christmas and New Year, I would like to thank those who contributed to making 2025 a great year (in spite of everything), and apologise to anyone/s I may have disappointed or offended, directly or indirectly, willingly or not, throughout the year. path. On my part - no anger, no hard feelings, maybe just regrets that I could not, in all humility, be a better version of myself . On the contrary, lots of love and gratitude for infinite learning in wisd… See more