English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For  January 01/2026
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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Bible Quotations For today
Presenting Jesus To The Temple
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 02/22-24/When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’),and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 31/2025/January 01/2026
Patriotic and Faithful Reflections for the New Year/Elias Bejjani/January 01/2026
Aoun: Specter of war distant but not totally eliminated
Risks to deposits: Lebanon's banks push back against financial gap law
Warnings grow in Israel over limits of force against Hezbollah
Israel Prepares for “Days of Fighting” Along the Lebanese Border
Israeli Forces Explode Last House in Marwahin, South Lebanon
The Lebanon File Awaits Netanyahu Upon His Return: What the Security Establishment Intends to Do
Ambassador Michel Issa at Bkerke: "Excellent Meeting"
Arimat Detained Pending Investigation
Yedioth Ahronoth: What is the Secret Behind the Timing of the Lebanon-Egypt Gas Deal?
Ahead of 2026, Washington's Tougher Terms for Lebanon
Deadlock in the Second Phase of the State Monopoly on Arms
Aoun reassures Lebanon that risk of war is ‘fading’ in year-end message
Peace with Israel: Lebanon’s Path to Economic Revival/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/This Is Beirut/December 31/2025
New Evidence Bolsters Theory of Mossad Role in Abduction of Retired Lebanese Officer
Lebanon Voices Official Anger at Hamas over Refusal to Hand over Weapons
Israeli operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah: December 22–28, 2025/David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/December 31/2025

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 31/2025/January 01/2026
Israel’s determination to disarm Hamas is ‘absolute’: Military chief
Israel to Ban 37 Aid Groups Operating in Gaza
Israel Begins Demolishing 25 Residential Buildings in West Bank Camp
Israel’s Mossad Tells Iranian Protesters ‘We Are with You'
‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022
Iranians try to access local government building on fourth day of protests
Iran protesters try to break into government building as unrest continues
Iran Government Building Attacked as Top Prosecutor Responds to Protests
Iran Appoints New Central Bank Governor After Record Currency Fall and Mass Protests
Türkiye Detains 125 ISIS Suspects in Nationwide Sweep
Turkey Decries Cyprus–Greece–Israel Security Talks
Nearly 25 ISIS Fighters Killed or Captured in Syria, US Military Says
Hadhramaut Governor to Asharq Al-Awsat: UAE Has Started Withdrawing its Forces, Door Still Open to STC
STC forces withdraw from positions in Yemen’s Hadramout
US envoy meets Yemen’s president, stresses need to counter Houthi threats
Gulf Countries, OIC Say Security of Saudi Arabia and GCC States Integral to Region

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 31/2025/January 01/2026
Just Wars and Unjust Regimes/Alberto M. Fernandez/National Catholic Register/December 31/2025
Why Israel and Trump Should Be Cautious About Pakistani Troops in Gaza/Anna Mahjar-Barducci/Gatestone Institute/December 31, 2025
The Dangers of a 'Mutated ISIS'/Amr el-Shobaki/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
The Arabs’ Challenges and the End of Pretenses to a Unitary Solution/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Updated Hamas ‘Narrative’ Signals Confidence About Keeping Power/Mark Dubowitz/FDD-Policy Brief/December 31/2025
Russia is keeping its helicopters away from Ukraine's naval drones, a special forces commander says. They were becoming 'easy targets.'/Sinéad Baker/Business Insider/December 31/2025
The many shades of Islam ...Not all interpretations justify and drive terrorism – but some do/Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/December 31, 2025 |
People of Iran keep rising up against tyranny, and we should help them/Behnam Ben Taleblu/New York Post/December 31/2025
Watching the world as 2026 begins: Peace in a world still shaped by conflict/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya English'/December 31/2025
Selected Face Book & X tweets for /December 31/2025

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 31/2025/January 01/2026
Patriotic and Faithful Reflections for the New Year
Elias Bejjani/January 01/2026
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2025/12/81879/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udOAxwh6Au0&t=7s
How transformative and healing it would be if each and every one of us were fully ready to welcome the new year with a clear conscience, a reconciled spirit, and a renewed commitment to love and understanding. Imagine entering the new year with a heart unburdened by the weight of past grievances, a mind freed from the chains of hostility, hatred, and jealousy, and a soul glowing with forgiveness and compassion.
Life, as fleeting as it is precious, unfolds in the blink of an eye. The gift of life that Almighty God has granted us is a treasure that He may choose to reclaim at any moment. These undeniable truths compel us to reflect deeply on how we live our days and how we engage with those around us. Let us, therefore, make a conscious decision to leave behind the pains, hardships, and disappointments of the ending year, embracing the opportunity for a fresh start.
As we turn the page to the new year, let us commit to filling the blank slate of this new year with acts of kindness, gestures of goodwill, and moments of genuine connection. Let us strive to build bridges where walls once stood, to sow seeds of hope where despair had taken root, and to light the path of love where shadows of division lingered.
For our beloved Lebanon, a nation enduring the heavy yoke of occupation and oppression, let this new year ignite a collective yearning for peace and freedom. May it inspire all its people—the impoverished, the marginalized, and the oppressed—to find strength in unity, courage in faith, and resolve in their pursuit of justice and sovereignty. Let us pray that 2025 brings a renewed spirit of hope and the dawn of a brighter, liberated future for our homeland.
To every faithful and wise individual, the call is clear: Begin this new year with open hands, a forgiving heart, and unwavering faith. Extend love to those who may have wronged you, embrace the gift of reconciliation, and walk forward with self-confidence and hope.
Let us usher the new year with prayers for a year marked by peace, love, and the fear of God. May it be a time of renewal and blessings for all. From the depths of our hearts, we wish everyone a Happy New Year filled with forgiveness, faith, hope, and enduring love.
May Lebanon’s suffering come to an end, and may its people rise with strength and dignity to reclaim their freedom and future.

Aoun: Specter of war distant but not totally eliminated
Naharnet/December 31, 2025
President Joseph Aoun on Wednesday hoped the Lebanese will enter the new year with a more stable and hopeful atmosphere. Reassuring that "the current atmosphere reflects positivity on all levels," Aoun reiterated that "the specter of war has become distant" but added "that does not mean it has been totally eliminated.""Efforts are still underway with the various friendly and brotherly countries in order to fully rule out war," Aoun added. The president also noted that domestically, "the security situation is considered to be among the best in the world ... despite the negative impact of the significant numbers of displaced Syrians and Palestinian refugees."

Risks to deposits: Lebanon's banks push back against financial gap law
LBCI/December 31, 2025
Lebanon's banking sector is mounting strong opposition to the government's proposed financial gap law, warning that the draft legislation could deepen losses, threaten bank stability, and ultimately endanger depositors' funds.Banking sources say the draft law is based on inflated figures, particularly regarding so-called illegitimate funds slated for write-off. While the government estimates these at around $34 billion, banks argue the actual amount would not exceed $20 billion. The discrepancy, they say, means the real losses facing the sector would be significantly higher than officially acknowledged. Banks also warn that the absence of clear, bank-by-bank data on losses and post-law viability raises the risk of widespread bank failures. Without detailed assessments of each institution's ability to continue operating, the law could accelerate the collapse of multiple banks and further jeopardize deposits. A second major concern centers on provisions requiring banks to recapitalize and attract new investors. Bank officials describe this as unrealistic, saying it is doubtful that investors would inject fresh capital to cover legacy losses in a high-risk country lacking a clear economic recovery plan or long-term vision. The third point of contention concerns amendments that reinforce a ban on using Lebanon's gold reserves, in line with existing legislation that prohibits any encroachment on them. Banks criticize this restriction, saying it would further constrain the Banque du Liban (BDL), limit liquidity options, and hinder efforts to meet deposit repayments or service outstanding bonds. Against this backdrop, banking associations are set to hold a general assembly next week to assess their options, including the possibility of challenging the draft law in court if it proceeds in its current form.

Warnings grow in Israel over limits of force against Hezbollah
LBCI/December 31, 2025
Israeli security and military officials have warned of the risks and consequences of attempting to settle the Hezbollah file through a military operation targeting the group alone, according to Israeli assessments of what they described as a green light given by U.S. President Donald Trump to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their recent meetings, alongside continued diplomatic efforts with the Lebanese state. The officials cautioned that launching an operation aimed at undermining Hezbollah and eliminating its missile arsenal would be a grave mistake, arguing that the likelihood of failure would far outweigh the chances of success. They stressed that such an approach could entangle Israel in a prolonged and costly confrontation without achieving its stated objectives. Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said the war is ongoing, not only against Lebanon but across multiple fronts, reflecting Israel’s assessment that it is facing a broad and interconnected set of challenges rather than a single arena. As part of their recommendations to decision-makers, security officials advocated a strategy they described as "systemic attrition," a gradual and complex weakening of Hezbollah’s capabilities. Under this approach, Israel would maintain its presence on Lebanese territory until what they describe as the dismantling of the group’s remaining weapons. On the diplomatic track, the officials proposed steps including the full implementation of United Nations resolutions and ceasefire agreements along the northern border, an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territories that remain disputed, and refraining from offensive cross-border engagements. They argued that such measures would make it harder for Hezbollah to justify continued possession of its weapons.

Israel Prepares for “Days of Fighting” Along the Lebanese Border
This is Beirut/December 31, 2025
Israel is preparing for possible “days of fighting” along the Lebanese border, as the deadline set by the U.S. for the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah by the end of 2025 expires on Wednesday, Israeli media reported.
The U.S. news site Axios, citing American officials, reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue during his recent meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. According to these sources, Mr. Netanyahu expressed Israel’s concerns to Mr. Trump over Hezbollah’s efforts to rebuild its arsenal of long-range missiles in Lebanon. The issue was reportedly discussed as part of broader talks on regional security and preventing a military escalation. Mr. Trump had previously accused Hezbollah of “acting irresponsibly,” saying that Washington was closely monitoring steps taken by the Lebanese authorities to achieve the group’s disarmament. No official announcements were made following the talks between the two leaders.
New Israeli Attacks in Southern Lebanon
Against the backdrop of heightened tensions, the Israeli army continued its attacks in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. According to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), an Israeli drone dropped a stun grenade in the afternoon on the Al-Marj–Al-Bayader area in the border town of Mays al-Jabal. The NNA also reported that the Israeli army blew up a house in the border village of Marwahine, noting that it was the only home that had remained intact in the locality. Earlier in the day, another drone attack targeted an excavator in the town of Aita al-Shaab, in the Bint Jbeil district, with no immediate reports of casualties. According to the same source, an Israeli force also infiltrated Lebanese territory shortly after midnight, advancing about 1,600 meters from the nearest border point before blowing up a house in the town of Houla

Israeli Forces Explode Last House in Marwahin, South Lebanon
Beirut/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
Israeli forces today (Wednesday) detonated a house in the border town of Marwahin in southern Lebanon. The National News Agency (NNA) announced that "the Israeli enemy today blew up the home of Omar Deeb al-Qasim in the border town of Marwahin, which was the only house still standing in its natural state in the town."Earlier Wednesday morning, a bomb dropped by an Israeli drone targeted an excavator in the town of Ayta al-Shab in southern Lebanon. Additionally, an Israeli force advanced past midnight into Lebanese territory and detonated a house in the southern town of Houla.It is worth noting that an agreement to cease hostilities between Israel and Lebanon was reached and took effect on November 27, 2024. Strikes since the signing of the agreement until last November 27 have resulted in the deaths of 335 people and the injury of 973 others.

The Lebanon File Awaits Netanyahu Upon His Return: What the Security Establishment Intends to Do
Janoubia/December 31, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
Israeli Occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will return to Israel from the United States this Friday. It remains unclear what understandings he reached with U.S. President Donald Trump regarding various war fronts. However, according to the newspaper Ma'ariv, the Israeli security establishment intends to present the Prime Minister with the level of readiness for a potential attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon. What is the story? The Lebanese government intends to announce within the coming hours or days the end of the military operation carried out by the Lebanese Army to disarm Hezbollah in the area south of the Litani River. The newspaper reports that the Lebanese government also intends to announce that it does not plan to expand the disarmament operation to the area north of the Litani. The Israeli security establishment considers that "the steps taken in Lebanon do not align with the ceasefire terms, increasing the IDF's readiness to take action against Hezbollah in Lebanon as required," according to Ma'ariv. It added: "The security establishment intends to present options to the Prime Minister and the political level to weaken Hezbollah, while also emphasizing the necessity of a military operation." Hezbollah’s Attempts to Recover The newspaper continues, citing IDF sources, that "the fact that the Lebanese Army and government do not intend to continue disarming Hezbollah will lead the IDF to do so." The IDF is monitoring Hezbollah’s attempts to recover and rebuild itself, particularly in areas north of the Litani. The report added: "Among the capabilities Hezbollah is trying to rebuild are precision missile systems and other offensive systems. In recent weeks, the Air Force has been striking training centers for the Radwan Forces in Lebanon."
The security establishment intends to highlight that Hezbollah is currently at its lowest operational level and that its ability to respond would be limited. Furthermore, the fact that Iran now has its "back to the wall" will make it difficult for it to intervene to save its proxy in Lebanon. The security establishment will present options against Hezbollah that would not necessarily lead to Israel dismantling the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon. This would allow Israel, at the end of a round of fighting, to return to the basic terms of the agreement while urging Lebanon to act more effectively against Hezbollah. This path aims to strengthen the Lebanese Army against Hezbollah and allow it to assume the responsibilities it pledged to undertake about a year and a month ago at the conclusion of Operation "Northern Arrows."

Ambassador Michel Issa at Bkerke: "Excellent Meeting"
Al-Markazia/December 31, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
The Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, received the Ambassador of the United States of America to Lebanon, Michel Issa, this afternoon at the patriarchal seat in Bkerke for a protocol visit. The meeting served as an occasion to review current local and regional conditions. Following the meeting, Issa stated: "The visit was an occasion to offer my congratulations to His Beatitude for the holidays. This is my first visit to Bkerke since assuming my diplomatic duties, and I am very pleased. We exchanged views with His Beatitude on a number of topics." He added: "I was supposed to come sooner, but the circumstances in Lebanon regarding the Pope’s visit did not permit it. The meeting with His Beatitude was excellent; we spoke about Lebanon, our concern for it, and peace within it. I thank His Beatitude for this reception."

Arimat Detained Pending Investigation
Al-Markazia/December 31, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
Public Prosecutor Judge Jamal al-Hajjar has ordered the detention of Sheikh Khaldoun Arimat pending investigation, following a lengthy interrogation session by Army Intelligence. The case involves the financial blackmail of politicians through an individual named Mustafa al-Sakhni, nicknamed "Abu Omar."Arimat was detained by the Intelligence Directorate in connection with the "Abu Omar" file after being heard as a suspect, while MP Fouad Makhzoumi and former Minister Mohamed Choucair were heard as witnesses in the case.

Yedioth Ahronoth: What is the Secret Behind the Timing of the Lebanon-Egypt Gas Deal?
Al-Markazia/December 31, 2025 (Translated from Arabic)
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth considered that the gas agreement between Lebanon and Egypt raises questions regarding its timing, noting that while the agreement with Israel is long-term, the agreement with Lebanon may be implemented soon. According to the newspaper, the question is: "Will Israeli gas find its way to Lebanon in the future—a country whose laws currently prohibit any economic cooperation or contact with Israel?" as reported by Russia Today. The newspaper noted that last Monday, Lebanon signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Egypt to meet its natural gas needs for electricity production. The MoU was signed by Energy Minister Joe Al-Saddi in the presence of Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Karem Abu Daoud. The Energy Minister explained that his country is determined to transition to natural gas and diversify its supply sources, and that the MoU is for importing gas from Egypt as soon as it becomes available. The newspaper reported that President Joseph Aoun received the Egyptian Petroleum Minister on the same Monday, noting that Aoun emphasized that "the signing of the MoU with Egypt will ensure the ability to increase electricity production." For his part, the Egyptian minister said his country would provide all possible support to Lebanon through its expertise in gas exploration, production, transport, and distribution. However, Yedioth Ahronoth added that Egypt's energy sector has faced a crisis in recent years, turning it into a gas-importing country. It pointed out that high demand, declining domestic production, and changes in external supplies resulted in frequent power outages for Egyptian citizens during the hottest days. The newspaper noted that the agreement does not aim for an immediate supply of gas to Lebanon, as that requires complex technical arrangements. What is striking is the timing: it comes just two weeks after Egypt signed a major gas deal with Israel to meet its domestic needs. It can be assumed that this deal with Israel gave Egypt the reassurance to expand its regional cooperation network. The Israeli newspaper confirmed that the deal with Israel is long-term, and similarly, the Lebanon deal will not be activated soon. Regarding the future vision, the report explained that Egypt aspires to regain its status as a regional energy hub by importing gas, liquefying it, and re-exporting it to benefit from price differences. In this context, Diaa Rashwan, head of the Egyptian State Information Service, justified the deal with Israel as being in "Egypt's clear strategic interest to enhance its position as a regional hub for gas trade in the Eastern Mediterranean."Yedioth Ahronoth concluded that the Lebanon agreement raises an additional issue: the regional environmental dimension. Environmental problems—from water and gas shortages to natural disasters and extreme weather events—do not recognize political borders. All countries in the region, including Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, share the same geographical space and limited resources, making cooperation necessary, even if through complex means, to meet basic population needs..

Ahead of 2026, Washington's Tougher Terms for Lebanon
Amal Chmouny/This is Beirut/December 31/2025
Heading into 2026, U.S. engagement in Lebanon has become explicitly conditioned on measurable progress toward Hezbollah’s disarmament, marking a clear break from the strategic ambiguity that long defined Washington’s approach. The aftermath of the 2024 Israel–Hezbollah conflict, alongside Lebanon’s deepening economic and political crises, sharpened U.S. focus on core security priorities. Policy documents and legislation have since formalized this shift, with Congress and the White House tying aid, diplomatic initiatives, and ceasefire mechanisms to concrete Lebanese actions on Hezbollah and border security. In 2026, U.S. policy will be measured by concrete results: diminished Hezbollah operational freedom and a lower risk of large-scale conflict with Israel. Should these benchmarks go unmet, Washington is expected to intensify punitive measures and conditionality. Beirut, in turn, faces difficult, politically costly decisions.
Shifting Diplomatic Engagement
Washington’s diplomatic engagement with Lebanon in 2025 was steered by a small, tight circle of confidants of U.S. President Donald Trump. Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Türkiye and special envoy to Syria, gradually relinquished oversight of the Lebanon file over the course of the year to Morgan Ortagus, the deputy special envoy for the Middle East, and to Michel Issa, who arrived as ambassador to Lebanon in November. Barrack’s high-profile but controversy-prone shuttle diplomacy in mid-2025, which pressed Beirut to act decisively against Hezbollah’s arms in exchange for financial lifelines, helped set the tone early while exposing the limits of a personality-driven approach. By year’s end, Issa’s arrival in Beirut and Ortagus’s elevation as Washington’s point person on the Israel–Lebanon ceasefire mechanism underscored a shift in the center of gravity away from Barrack’s regional grand bargaining.
U.S. policy moved toward a more institutionalized framework, centered on the ceasefire mechanism, linking disarmament, border stability, and economic incentives. Ortagus prepared the ground for Lebanon to hold its first direct, civilian-led talks with Israel in decades via the ceasefire mechanism, with Issa nudging Beirut to continue joining the meetings despite Israel’s ongoing airstrikes and domestic political backlash. The ceasefire mechanism has broadened from its initial focus on limited military issues to a testing ground for political and economic initiatives. Negotiators have proposed reconstruction projects along the border and floated the idea of a Trump-branded economic zone contingent on Hezbollah’s disarmament. As such, U.S. officials seek to demonstrate that de-escalation and economic recovery can advance simultaneously rather than in sequence. In 2026, Barrack is expected to assume a secondary role, focusing on broader Syria-Lebanon-Israel issues, while Ortagus leads Washington’s Lebanon policy with support from Issa. Should the ceasefire mechanism remain effective, Ortagus will press for substantive discussions on border demarcation, demilitarized zones, and economic cooperation, with tangible progress on disarmament and demarcation serving as prerequisites for future Lebanon-Israel peace negotiations.
Disarmament Roadmap and Multilateral Diplomacy
A key pillar of Washington’s policy in 2025 was the drive toward a structured track for disarming Hezbollah, with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) positioned as the centerpiece while Lebanese cabinet decisions provided a political framework. Under intense U.S. and regional pressure, Lebanon’s government shifted from its previous vague commitments on seizing Hezbollah’s weapons to approving on September 5 an LAF plan for disarmament, even as Hezbollah and Amal ministers walked out in protest. On the ground, however, the gap between U.S. demands and Lebanese realities was stark. Washington insisted on specific, time-bound steps to disarm Hezbollah, but the group’s entrenched power and the LAF’s limitations meant progress was largely rhetorical. The U.S.-led ceasefire monitoring mechanism convened regular trilateral meetings with Israeli and Lebanese delegations to police violations and manage crises. In parallel, U.S., French, and Saudi officials met in Paris on December 18 with LAF commander Rodolphe Haykal to discuss a roadmap for curbing and eventually disarming Hezbollah, including strengthening monitoring and expanding international support teams. In 2026, the ceasefire mechanism itself will act as a key instrument of leverage. Washington will use violations and implementation reports to press both sides. Israel will face pressure to exercise restraint, while Lebanon will be expected to enforce compliance. Should Beirut fail to rein in Hezbollah or its affiliates, Congress could impose even tougher conditions, and European and Gulf partners may grow more skeptical.
No More “Blank Check” for LAF
Ahead of 2026, Washington replaced its longstanding bipartisan support for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) with a new doctrine. Military and security assistance was now explicitly conditioned on the LAF’s willingness and demonstrated ability to challenge Hezbollah’s influence, rather than merely coexist with it. This recalibrated approach clarified U.S. objectives and red lines, signaling a readiness to withhold support if benchmarks were not met. A new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provision further tightened the mandate for U.S. military aid, specifying that support “may be used only” to bolster the LAF’s capacity against Hezbollah and other terrorist groups threatening Lebanon and its neighbors. Drafts and explanatory texts surrounding the 2026 NDAA emphasized that U.S. support was no longer a “blank check,” reflecting Washington’s waning patience for any armed role for Hezbollah.
Fragile State, Limited Leverage
Washington’s tougher approach has collided with Lebanon’s fragile politics and chronically weak state institutions. President Joseph Aoun’s government was already beset by economic collapse and deep political fissures. Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm—and its ability to mobilize allies like Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri—has made any LAF or cabinet attempt to challenge the militia’s arsenal highly risky. Ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for 2026, U.S.-backed disarmament steps have also run directly into Lebanese electoral calculations, especially in Shia-majority areas where Hezbollah remains deeply entrenched. Paradoxically, as U.S. policy has grown more conditional, Lebanon’s dependency and vulnerability have intensified. Washington has increasingly wielded aid as its primary tool to influence Lebanese behavior, but this sharpened leverage risks destabilizing the very partner it seeks to empower.

Deadlock in the Second Phase of the State Monopoly on Arms
Bassam Abou Zeid/This is Beirut/December 31/2025
By the last day of 2025, the Lebanese government was expected to have completed the disarmament of Hezbollah nationwide, following a decision made at a Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Palace on August 5. The official statement tasked the Lebanese Army with drawing up an operational plan to restore the monopoly of weapons exclusively to the state before the end of the year, covering the entities listed in the declaration on the cessation of hostilities. The army’s plan, however, did not align with this timeline, due to both military and political considerations, and it did not include a clear deadline for completing the monopoly of arms. It outlined four phases, with the first phase taking place south of the Litani River. The army was expected to announce the completion of this stage so that the area would fall under full military and security control of the Lebanese state, effectively preventing any Hezbollah activity. The army command was then to signal the start of the second phase, covering the area between the Litani and Awali Rivers. Hezbollah has stated that it is only concerned with the first phase and has not clarified whether it will halt its military and security activities south of the Litani. It has informed domestic and international actors that it does not intend to participate in the second phase and that no weapons will be handed over north of the Litani. The question now is how the government will respond to this reality, and how the army will act. The government is awaiting a new report from Lebanese Army Commander General Rodolphe Haykal on progress south of the Litani River. The report is expected during the first week of the year.If the first phase is confirmed, the army will have to move forward with the second phase between the Litani and Awali Rivers, setting a clear timeline for its implementation. If not, the government may be forced to act on its own. Such a step could trigger a political crisis even more serious than the current dispute between Hezbollah and the government’s presidency. The army cannot ignore Cabinet decisions but enforcing them by force carries the risk of confrontation with armed Hezbollah members. The situation is further complicated by the U.S.-Israeli agreement, which is pressuring the government to quickly dismantle Hezbollah’s military and security network. Any delay could eventually spark an escalation in Israeli strikes.

Aoun reassures Lebanon that risk of war is ‘fading’ in year-end message
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/December 31, 2025
BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Wednesday sought to reassure citizens in his year-end address, saying “the overall atmosphere remains positive and the risk of war is fading,” amid widespread concern over a possible Israeli escalation against Hezbollah. Fear of renewed attacks followed Israeli criticism of a Lebanese Army weapons-confiscation operation that is set to enter its second phase at the start of the 2026. The plan include the expansion from areas north of the Litani River to the Awali River, after the first phase was completed south of the Litani.
President Aoun cautioned that this does not mean “completely eliminating the risk of war,” stressing that “work is underway with various friendly and brotherly countries to completely neutralize the threat of war.”Addressing Internal Security officials, Aoun said that the “situation is among the best,” noting that this assessment has been echoed by foreign visitors to Lebanon, despite the strain caused by large numbers of Syrian and Palestinian refugees. He added that security forces were fully carrying out their duties and solving crimes with notable speed, pointing to the successful visit of Pope Leo XIV earlier this year as further evidence of progress. On Monday, Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon Alaa Moussa stressed during a Beirut press conference that implementing “international agreements and resolutions, foremost among them the Nov. 27, 2014 agreement and Resolution 1701, constitutes the fundamental approach to sparing Lebanon further security tensions,” speaking of “dire consequences that could result from continued escalation.”The Egyptian diplomat indicated that “there are no hidden warnings or threats directed at Lebanon, but rather a clear commitment to the agreements signed by the concerned parties, which must be fully implemented by everyone.”The ambassador stated that his country, under the directives of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, is “exerting intensive efforts to reduce tensions in southern Lebanon and the region in general, through active diplomatic contacts led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Badr Abdelatty with relevant regional and international parties.”
Israeli military spokesman Avichai Adraee published on Wednesday a summary of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2025. “The Army targeted approximately 380 armed operatives, including Ali Tabatabai (chief of staff), Hassan Kamal (responsible for anti-tank missiles on the southern front), Abbas Hassan Karky (logistics officer in the southern command), and Khodr Saeed Hashem (commander of the naval force in the Radwan Unit),” he said. “It also attacked approximately 950 military targets, including 210 launch sites and weapons depots, 140 military buildings, and about 60 tunnel entrances,” Adraee added. In the statement, he accused Hezbollah of committing about 1,920 ceasefire violations and said the military would continue its raids and targeting operations in the new year. UNIFIL Com. Gen. Diodato Abagnara said in his end-of-the-year message that “UNIFIL will continue to support Lebanon and Israel in implementing their obligations under Resolution 1701, building on the stability achieved in 2025 and strengthening efforts toward a lasting peace.”As part of the weapons restriction plan, on Tuesday, the Fatah movement — the Palestinian National Security Forces in Lebanon — handed over a new batch of heavy and medium weapons from the Ain Al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp to the Lebanese Army in four trucks, away from the media. This is the second batch of weapons to be handed over from the camp, which is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. It represents the fifth phase of the Palestinian weapons handover process in the camps, four of which were completed between Aug. 21 and Sept. 13, 2025, encompassing nine camps, including Ain Al-Hilweh. The handover follows and implements an agreement reached between Aoun and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after the latter’s visit to Lebanon in May. Abbas had announced “the Palestinian Authority’s support for the Lebanese state’s plan to extend its authority over all Lebanese territory, including the Palestinian camps.”Hamas continues to refuse to hand over its weapons to the Lebanese Army, while Hezbollah maintains its weapons north of the Litani River. The Lebanese Army implemented “exceptional security measures in various Lebanese regions on New Year’s Eve, with the aim of maintaining security.”It called on citizens to “cooperate with the security measures taken to maintain public safety and prevent incidents,” warning of the consequences of firing weapons, which will be prosecuted as it poses a threat to public safety. In another measure, authorities announced that gun licenses and traffic permits will be suspended until Jan. 2, 2026. In Beirut’s southern suburbs, residents signed a pledge as part of an Internal Security Forces campaign against celebratory gunfire on New Year’s Eve, committing not to fire weapons in public and to report violations with photos or videos.

Peace with Israel: Lebanon’s Path to Economic Revival
Hussain Abdul-Hussain/This Is Beirut/December 31/2025
Peace with Israel would dramatically reduce security risks, transforming Lebanon from a volatile “frontier market” into an attractive regional hub.
An unconditional peace treaty with Israel, inspired by the Abraham Accords’ success, could reduce Lebanon’s security risks, unlock billions in foreign investments, revive trade, agriculture, and services, and create jobs—offering economic salvation while preserving Lebanon’s support of Palestinians.
Normalization could boost Lebanon’s economy, which has suffered an estimated 40 percent contraction since the 2019 financial collapse, with 8–10 percent annual growth possible over the next decade under peace. Such growth could help reduce unemployment, estimated at 30 percent, and service public debt exceeding 150 percent of Lebanon’s GDP.
Chronic instability has crippled foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows: just $655 million in 2023 and $1.84 billion in 2024, far below pre-crisis levels above $2 billion annually. Hezbollah’s conflict with Israel has scared off investors, costing Lebanon an estimated $105 million in foregone FDI in the first half of 2024 alone. A Lebanese-Israeli peace treaty would dramatically reduce security risks, transforming Lebanon from a volatile “frontier market” into an attractive regional hub.
Mirroring the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the Abraham Accords drove bilateral investments beyond $5 billion by 2024, Lebanon could attract Israeli tech and cybersecurity firms leveraging the skilled workforce, alongside agrotech investment in the fertile Bekaa Valley. Gulf spillovers into Lebanon would follow. In Morocco, inflows from the UAE rose 58 percent after normalization with Israel.
Lebanon could draw $1 to 2 billion from sovereign funds for ports and renewables, while unlocking $11 billion in World Bank aid and $5 to $10 billion more from the IMF and EU. Conservative projections show FDI doubling to $3.5–4 billion by 2028; under optimistic scenarios, it could reach 5 percent of GDP by 2030, supporting the creation of roughly 150,000 high-value jobs.
Once accounting for 20 percent of Lebanon’s economy, the tourism sector would undoubtedly recover. In 2018, the year before Lebanon’s economic and financial meltdown, two million tourists visited the country. This number dropped to 1.1 million in 2024 due to the conflict with Israel.
Peace would facilitate cross-border travel, attracting foreign visitors and Israeli tourists to Christian pilgrimage sites, historic sites in Baalbek and Byblos, and Beirut’s vibrant nightlife. Increased tourism could create 100,000 jobs and generate up to $3 billion a year. For comparison, the Abraham Accords increased UAE tourism earnings by 15 percent, or $5 billion.
With normalized ties, Lebanon’s trade could expand significantly. Instability and the lack of direct trade with Israel have kept Lebanon’s exports around $4 billion annually. A peace pact could establish a free trade zone along the southern border, fostering cross-border commerce. Meanwhile, the Bekaa Valley could supply Israel with $500 million in fresh produce each year, while tech-driven agricultural collaborations could attract FDI and boost productivity.
Lebanon’s traditional economic strength lies in services—healthcare, banking, and education—which would also thrive with peace. Confidence in the banking sector would be restored, regional patients would be drawn to Lebanon’s high-quality hospitals, and international students attracted to its prestigious universities. Integrated regional markets would allow Lebanese professionals to export their expertise.
This peace-driven economic growth would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, including skilled positions in tech, finance, healthcare, and education, alongside unskilled ones in construction, tourism services, logistics, and agriculture. According to Rand Corporation models, normalization with Israel could generate $1 trillion in regional activity and four million jobs over a decade, translating to 200,000 new jobs in Lebanon.
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who face severe employment restrictions barring them from dozens of professions and confining many to informal, low-wage work, would stand to gain immensely. With poverty rates exceeding 80 percent among Palestinians, expanded opportunities in a booming economy could provide dignified livelihoods, reducing dependency and fostering greater inclusion—without naturalizing them—until they can be resettled outside Lebanon.
Normalization with Jerusalem does not require abandoning support for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, a principle Lebanon has long upheld. Historical precedents prove this compatibility: Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and Jordan followed in 1994, yet both remain steadfast advocates for Palestinian statehood and a negotiated two-state solution.
Similarly, Abraham Accords signatories like the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco have normalized ties while continuing to affirm the two-state solution as the path to broader regional peace, often leveraging their new relations with Israel to press for progress on Palestinian rights. Peace with Israel would give Lebanon a stronger voice in regional forums, enabling Beirut to advocate more effectively for a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel—turning Lebanese isolation into influence.
Lebanon must embrace peace to achieve economic salvation and ensure a prosperous future. Postponing normalization with Israel will only deepen the country’s economic crisis, while economic models showcase the immense benefits of acting quickly.
**Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Read in This Is Beirut
https://thisisbeirut.com.lb/articles/1331427/

New Evidence Bolsters Theory of Mossad Role in Abduction of Retired Lebanese Officer
Beirut: Youssef Diab/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
A growing body of evidence from Lebanese security and judicial investigations is strengthening suspicions that Israel’s Mossad intelligence service orchestrated the luring and abduction of retired General Security captain Ahmed Shukr, whose disappearance nearly two weeks ago has raised alarm within Lebanon’s security establishment. As investigations led by the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces progress, officials describe what they consider to be high-quality findings, firmly placing the case in the category of a coordinated intelligence operation.
Beyond initial suspicions
Search efforts have so far failed to uncover any trace of Shukr on Lebanese territory. A senior Lebanese judicial source told Asharq Al-Awsat that “all the evidence and data collected so far point to the hypothesis of Shukr’s abduction.”He added that investigators have “moved beyond the stage of initial suspicions and entered an in-depth analysis of the luring process, communications patterns, and field developments before and after the moment of his disappearance.” The case is linked to suspicions over Shukr’s connection to the long-unresolved file of the disappearance of Israeli air force pilot Ron Arad in southern Lebanon in 1986, he remarked.
Key leads
Among the most significant leads bolstering this hypothesis, the judicial source said, is “precise monitoring of internal and external communications involving Shukr in the hours and days before he was lured to the Kark area near the city of Zahle in the Bekaa Valley, where he disappeared under circumstances still under investigation.”
The data revealed an unusual pattern suggesting “tight, cross-border coordination.”Shukr belongs to the family of Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah leader who was assassinated by Israel on July 30, 2024, in an airstrike on a building in the Haret Hreik area of Beirut’s southern suburbs. However, Abdul Salam Shukr, Ahmed's brother, rejected any attempt to link them closely to Fuad Shukr. “No one in the town even knew Fuad Shukr,” he said. “Since the early 1980s, he left the town and never returned, and he was distant from his relatives.”He stressed that Ahmed Shukr, since retiring from military service, “never left the Bekaa. He stayed at home and played cards with his friends at night.”
Carefully planned operation
In a development described as highly significant, the source revealed what was termed an “important” piece of evidence from surveillance cameras. “CCTV footage captured an image of a car in the Kark area at the time Shukr was lured and disappeared,” the source said. “The same car was seen later that night heading from Beirut toward the road leading to Beirut’s international airport, carrying a Swedish national suspected of direct involvement in the luring and abduction.”Security agencies later verified the route by which the Swede left Lebanon. According to the judicial source, the man “traveled abroad just hours after the incident, and investigators now have sufficient information about his departure and destination.”This, the source told Asharq Al-Awsat, is an additional indication of “prior, carefully coordinated planning that goes beyond the capabilities of conventional local networks.”
New development
The abduction of Ahmed Shukr now appears to be one of Lebanon’s most dangerous security cases, given its intelligence dimensions and the broader questions it raises about security breaches and the covert confrontation between Lebanon and Israel.
At the same time, a new development has brought renewed attention to a Lebanese man identified by his initials A.M., who resides in Kinshasa. He had previously contacted Shukr, asking him to assist people who claimed they wanted to purchase property in the Bekaa, an approach investigators believe was central to the luring operation. A.M. has since returned from abroad and surrendered himself to the security services. Accounts differed over why A.M. returned to Beirut after a wanted notice had been issued against him on suspicion of a possible role in the case. While some information suggested he was pressured by the Lebanese community abroad to return and turn himself in, sources close to the investigation said he offered a completely different account. According to these sources, A.M. said that he too “fell victim to the same group that targeted and abducted Ahmed Shukr,” and that he came to Lebanon of his own free will “to clear his name and place the information he has at the disposal of the security services.”Security information indicates that A.M. arrived in Beirut on Sunday evening and was initially questioned by General Security before being handed over to the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces, at the order of Public Prosecutor Judge Jamal al-Hajjar, who is personally overseeing the investigation due to the case’s sensitivity and complexity.
Findings expected within days
Sources said the initial questioning of A.M. is expected to be completed within a maximum of three days, after which the results of the investigation will be announced, including whether his account aligns with the technical data and evidence already in the possession of security agencies. Earlier, Asharq Al-Awsat sources had revealed that the missing officer is the brother of Hassan Shukr, a fighter who was part of the group involved in the capture of Ron Arad after his aircraft was shot down over southern Lebanon on October 16, 1986. Responding to this, Ahmed Shukr’s brother said: “Hassan joined military service in 1979, which means he was a state employee when Arad disappeared in 1986. It is well known that state employees do not engage in political parties.”

Lebanon Voices Official Anger at Hamas over Refusal to Hand over Weapons
Beirut: Paula Astih/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
As the Lebanese army presses ahead with efforts to seize weapons inside Palestinian refugee camps across the country, a key question remains unresolved: what will become of Hamas’s arsenal in Lebanon, as the group continues to defy a government decision and a Lebanese-Palestinian agreement requiring it to hand over its arms. Official Lebanese frustration with Hamas and allied factions has reached unprecedented levels, driven by their refusal to hand over medium and heavy weapons located south of the Litani River, specifically in the Rashidieh Palestinian refugee camp.The deadline set by the Lebanese army to complete the first phase of the government’s decision to impose state monopoly over arms, which covers the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border, expires at the end of 2025. The government is expected to announce during a meeting in early 2026 the completion of the first phase and the move to implement the second one, in an effort to head off Israeli threats to launch a new round of war to counter what Israel describes as attempts by Hezbollah to rebuild its military capabilities. The hardline stance taken by Hamas and other factions has raised questions, particularly as Hezbollah has complied and handed over its weapons south of the Litani. This has heightened concerns over the safety and stability of the Rashidieh camp if Israel decides to target weapons believed to include medium and heavy arms stored inside it.
External mediation efforts
A senior official told Asharq Al-Awsat that Lebanon has sought external mediation to address the issue of Hamas’s weapons, and that these countries have exerted pressure on the group, so far without success. Sources following the file said that Fatah’s handover on Tuesday of a new batch of weapons from the Ain al-Hilweh camp was a renewed attempt to pressure Hamas into surrendering its arms. Head of the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee Ambassador Ramez Dimashkieh openly expressed official Lebanese dissatisfaction with Hamas and allied factions and with their handling of the issue. “As long as these factions declare that they operate under the authority of the Lebanese state, they are supposed to abide by the state’s decisions, not resort to stalling by linking the handover to the issue of rights,” Dimashkieh told Asharq Al-Awsat. “We know there are rights and demands, and we are working seriously on this file, but we reject any bargaining between one file and another.”He said there was no benefit in holding broad meetings with the factions, stressing that Hamas and its allies should instead contact the Lebanese army directly to set dates for handing over weapons, just as the Palestine Liberation Organization factions have done. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other allied factions reject the decisions of the Lebanese Palestinian summit that was held earlier this year, arguing that the Lebanese state should resolve the Palestinian file in Lebanon as a single package, and should not prioritize weapons over Palestinian rights and demands.
Sources in Hamas told Asharq Al-Awsat that the group is still waiting for Dimashkieh to invite all factions to dialogue on the weapons issue and outstanding files related to Palestinian rights, with the aim of agreeing on a framework paper for a solution. They said Dimashkieh had promised during the last meeting to call for such talks, but no invitation has been made.There appears to be no Lebanese political or military plan to forcibly collect Palestinian weapons. Military sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the army’s current role regarding the remaining weapons inside the camps is limited to preventing the entry or exit of arms, with security measures tightened at the main and secondary entrances to camps across Lebanon.
Fifth batch of Fatah weapons handed over
Meanwhile, the Lebanese army announced on Tuesday that, as part of the ongoing process to remove weapons from Palestinian camps, it had taken delivery of a quantity of Palestinian arms from the Ain al-Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon, in coordination with the relevant Palestinian authorities. The army stated that the handover included various types of weapons and ammunition, which were received by specialized military units for inspection and further processing. For its part, the Palestinian National Security Forces in Lebanon, the military wing of Fatah, said in a statement that its forces had completed on Tuesday the handover of the fifth batch of heavy weapons belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization at the Ain al-Hilweh camp in Sidon.The statement said the move was in implementation of the joint presidential statement issued by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in May, and the subsequent work of the joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee tasked with following up on camp conditions and improving living standards. The total number of Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA in Lebanon stands at 489,292. More than half live in 12 organized camps recognized by UNRWA.

Israeli operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah: December 22–28, 2025
David Daoud/FDD's Long War Journal/December 31/2025
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted numerous operations throughout Lebanon against Hezbollah between December 22 and December 28, 2025. Israeli activities last week were concentrated in south Lebanon, targeting alleged Hezbollah assets on both sides of the Litani River, but also reached Hezbollah assets and personnel as far north as Hermel and Hawsh Sayyed Ali in the country’s northeast. Israeli operations included strikes on Hezbollah assets and Radwan Force training camps, as well as targeted killings—including the IDF killing a Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) soldier whom it claimed was a dual Lebanese Military Intelligence and Hezbollah member.
The IDF conducted operations in 22 Lebanese locales, some of them more than once. These activities included:
Airstrikes: Seven(+)
Artillery strikes: One
Detonations: Two
Drone strikes: Two
Flares: One
Ground activities: Three
Quadcopter activities: 11
Map instructions: Click the top-left icon or an icon on the map to open the Map Key and adjust the map’s zoom as desired. Click the top-right icon to open a larger version of the map.
Baalbek-Hermel Governorate
Hermel District: Hawsh Sayyed Ali and Hermel
Nabatieh Governorate
Bint Jbeil District: Aitaroun, Ayta ash Shaab, and Ramieh
Hasbaya District: Kfarshouba and Shebaa
Marjayoun District: Aitaroun-Blida,Adaisseh, Houla, Kfar Kela, Meiss al Jabal, Safad al Bateekh, Tel Hamames, and Wazzani
Nabatieh District: Breij, Houmine, and Numeiriyeh
South Lebanon Governorate
Jezzine District: Mount Safi
Sidon District: Aqnit-Maamariyah-Quneitra and Beslaya-Kfar Malki
Tyre District: Janata
Casualties
Between December 22 and 28, 2025, Israeli operations in Lebanon killed six people, including five militants of various affiliations and one LAF soldier who was also an alleged Hezbollah operative, and wounded an unidentified person.
December 22, 2025: Three alleged Hezbollah operatives were killed.
December 23, 2025: No casualties were reported.
December 24, 2025: One unidentified individual was wounded.
December 25, 2025: One Hezbollah operative was killed, one Lebanese Resistance Brigades operative was killed, and one Qods Force operative was killed.
December 26, 2025: No casualties were reported.
December 27, 2025: No casualties were reported.
December 28, 2025: No casualties were reported.
Chronology of Israeli operations against Hezbollah, December 22–28, 2025
December 22
At 2:09 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle on the Aqnit-Maamariyah-Quneitra road in the South Lebanon Governorate’s Sidon District. The strike killed three people. The IDF later released a statement saying that the casualties were Ali Hassan Abdallah, Mustafa Mohammad Ballout, and Hassan Khodor Issa, misidentified in the IDF statement as Hassaan Hamdan. The IDF alleged all three were Hezbollah operatives “involved in advancing terror initiatives against IDF troops and involved in restoring Hezbollah’s installations near Sidon.” The IDF claimed that Ali Abdallah was a member of Lebanese Military Intelligence while also serving as a Hezbollah operative, and another one of the fatalities was part of Hezbollah’s aerial defense forces in the Sidon sector. The Lebanese Armed Forces and Hezbollah both denied Abdallah’s membership in Hezbollah. LAF’s official eulogy of Abdallah described him as “First Sergeant Ali Abdallah from the Support Brigade – Anti-Armor Regiment.” However, while Abdallah was given an official LAF military funeral in his hometown of Houmine, pictures from the event indicate it was conducted jointly with Hezbollah, with the group giving Ballout and Issa an official military funeral—implicitly claiming them as its operatives—alongside Abdallah.
At 4:44 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped a stun explosive on the outskirts of Ayta ash Shaab in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District. Israeli forces also directed machine-gun fire toward the outskirts of Aitaroun in the Bint Jbeil District.
December 23
At 9:33 am, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped an explosive near alleged farmers on the outskirts of Wazzani in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District.
At 10:26 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli artillery targeted the outskirts of Ramieh in the South Lebanon Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District.
December 24
NNA Lebanon reported that at approximately 10:00 am, several Israeli airstrikes targeted the wadi of Numeiriyeh in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Nabatieh District.
NNA Lebanon reported that at 10:15 am, an Israeli airstrike targeted the wadi of Houmine in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Nabatieh District.
NNA Lebanon reported that sometime in the evening, an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle in Janata in the South Lebanon Governorate’s Tyre District. The strike wounded one unidentified person who happened to be passing by.
December 25
NNA Lebanon reported that at dawn, Israeli forces detonated two homes in the lower neighborhood of Kfar Kela in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District
NNA Lebanon reported that at dawn, two Israeli quadcopters dropped fragmentation explosives in Houla in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District, damaging an excavator and several vehicles.
NNA Lebanon reported that at dawn, an Israeli quadcopter dropped a stun explosive on Adaisseh in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District.
At 10:03 am, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle on the road to Hawsh Sayyed Ali in the Baalbek-Hermel Governorate’s Hermel District. The strike killed two people, who were transferred to the Batoul Hospital in Hermel, which is owned and operated by Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Committee. The casualties were later announced as Hezbollah auxiliary militia Lebanese Resistance Brigades operative Majed Abdelamir Qanso, whose nom de guerre was Abu Ali, from Hermel, and Hussain Mahmoud Al Jawhari, also from Hermel. Hezbollah gave Qanso and Jawhari an official joint funeral in their hometown. The IDF later released a statement claiming to have targeted and killed Hussain Mahmoud Marshad al Jawhari “near Nasriyeh,” claiming he was a “central operative in the Operational Unit of the Quds Force (Unit 840)” of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC-QF). The statement alleged Jawhari had been “involved in recent years in planning and advancing terror initiatives against the State of Israel from Syria and Lebanon.” It also claimed Jawhari operated under direct IRGC-QF control as part of Unit 840, “headed by Asghar Bagheri and his deputy Mohammad Reza Ansari […] responsible for directing and overseeing Iranian terror activity against the State of Israel.”
NNA Lebanon reported that at 2:30 pm, an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle at the entrance of Safad al Bateekh in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District. The strike killed one person. Hezbollah-affiliated social media later announced the death of Hezbollah operative Mohammad Ibrahim Alaeddine, whose nom de guerre was Abu Ali Mortada, from Majdal Selm. Hezbollah gave Alaeddine an official funeral in his hometown. The IDF later released a statement claiming to have targeted and killed a Hezbollah operative “near Jumayjimiyah involved in Hezbollah’s regeneration efforts in the area […] in violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
Death announcement for Mohammad Ibrahim Alaeddine. (Balagh Media Telegram)
At 5:07 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped two fragmentation explosives between Aitaroun and Blida in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District.
At 6:20 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped explosives on Kilo 9 between Blida and Aitaroun, while another quadcopter dropped an incendiary explosive on an uninhabited home in Aitaroun, setting it on fire.
At 6:46 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli forces positioned inside the IDF’s Tel Hamames post in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District directed machine-gun fire toward the surrounding area.
December 26
At 10:23 am, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli airstrikes targeted the barrens of Hermel in the Baalbek-Hermel Governorate’s Hermel District.
At 10:33 am, NNA Lebanon reported that several Israeli airstrikes targeted Mount Safi in the South Lebanon Governorate’s Jezzine District and Breij in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Nabatieh District.
At 10:38 am, NNA Lebanon reported that several Israeli airstrikes targeted the wadi of Beslaya-Kfar Malki in the South Lebanon Governorate’s Sidon District.
At 10:25 am, the IDF released a statement on the preceding airstrikes, claiming to have targeted several Hezbollah installations throughout Lebanon. The IDF alleged these strikes included targeting a military training compound belonging to Hezbollah’s Radwan Force commando unit, which it alleged was used to train the group’s operatives to conduct terror attacks against the IDF and Israeli citizens. The Israeli military also said it struck several weapons storage facilities and unspecified Hezbollah military positions and installations whose existence “constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
At 11:38 am, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped a stun explosive in Adaisseh in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District.
At 11:22 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped two stun explosives near Khallet Wardeh in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Bint Jbeil District, and another Israeli quadcopter dropped a stun explosive in the Dabbakeh neighborhood of Meiss al Jabal in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District.
December 27
No operations were reported.
December 28
At 8:59 am, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli forces positioned inside Israel directed heavy machine-gun fire toward Kfarshouba in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Hasbaya District, damaging several houses.
At 11:06 am, NNA Lebanon reported that an Israeli quadcopter dropped a stun explosive in the Amra area of Wazzani in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Marjayoun District.
At 9:48 pm, NNA Lebanon reported that Israeli artillery fired three flares over Naqqar Pond south of Shebaa in the Nabatieh Governorate’s Hasbaya District.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 31/2025/January 01/2026
Israel’s determination to disarm Hamas is ‘absolute’: Military chief
AFP/December 31/2025
Israel is determined to disarm Palestinian militant group Hamas, the country’s military chief said Wednesday, describing 2026 as a “decisive year” for Israel’s security. “The year 2026 will be a decisive year in shaping the security reality of the state of Israel. Our determination to disarm Hamas of its weapons is absolute,” Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir told troops during a visit in Gaza. “We will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to rebuild its capabilities and threaten us,” he added, speaking just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue of Hamas disarmament in talks with US President Donald Trump.

Israel to Ban 37 Aid Groups Operating in Gaza
Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Israel plans to ban 37 aid organizations from operating in Gaza from Thursday unless they hand over detailed information on their Palestinian staff, despite mounting criticism from the United Nations and the European Union. Several NGOs have told AFP the new rules will have a major impact on food and medical shipments to Gaza, and humanitarian groups warn there is already not enough aid to cover the devastated territory's needs. Israel's deadline for NGOs to provide the details expires at midnight on Wednesday. "They refuse to provide lists of their Palestinian employees because they know, just as we know, that some of them are involved in terrorism or linked to Hamas," spokesman for the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Gilad Zwick, told AFP, naming 37 NGOs that had so far failed to meet the new requirements. "I highly doubt that what they haven't done for 10 months, they will suddenly do in less than 12 hours," Zwick said. "We certainly won't accept any cooperation that is just for show, simply to get an extension." For its part, Hamas, the armed Palestinian group which still controls part of Gaza, branded the Israeli decision "criminal behavior" and urged the United Nations and broader international community to condemn it. Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories. A fragile ceasefire has been in place in Gaza since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
On Tuesday, Israel specified that "acts of de-legitimizing Israel" or denial of events surrounding Hamas's October 7 attack would be "grounds for license withdrawal".
Israel has singled out international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), alleging that it had two employees who were members of Palestinian groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas. "We continue to seek reassurances and clarity over a concerning request to share a staff list, which may be in violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law and of our humanitarian principles," MSF said, urging Israel to allow it to operate. "We will be exploring all possible avenues to alter the outcomes of this decision." Apart from MSF, some of the 37 NGOs to be hit with the ban are the Norwegian Refugee Council, World Vision International, CARE and Oxfam, according to the list given by Zwick.
'Guarantee access' -
On Wednesday, United Nations rights chief Volker Turk described Israel's decision as "outrageous", calling on states to urgently insist Israel shift course.
"Such arbitrary suspensions make an already intolerable situation even worse for the people of Gaza," he said. The European Union warned that Israel's decision would block "life-saving" assistance from reaching Gazans. "The EU has been clear: the NGO registration law cannot be implemented in its current form," EU humanitarian chief Hadja Lahbib posted on X. UN Palestinian refugee agency chief Philippe Lazzarini said the move sets a "dangerous precedent". "Failing to push back against attempts to control the work of aid organizations will further undermine the basic humanitarian principles of neutrality, independence, impartiality and humanity underpinning aid work across the world," he said on X. UNRWA itself has faced the ire of Israeli authorities since last year, with Lazzarini declared persona non grata by Israel. Israel had accused UNRWA of providing cover for Hamas, claiming that some of the agency's employees took part in the October 7, 2023 attack. A series of investigations found some "neutrality-related issues" at UNRWA, the agency says, but insists Israel had not provided evidence for its headline allegation. On Tuesday, the foreign ministers of 10 countries, including France and the United Kingdom, had already urged Israel to "guarantee access" to aid in the Gaza Strip, where they said the humanitarian situation remains "catastrophic". In a territory with 2.2 million inhabitants, "1.3 million people still require urgent shelter support", the ministers of Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland said. While a deal for a ceasefire that started on October 10 stipulated the entry of 600 trucks per day, only 100 to 300 are carrying humanitarian aid, aid groups say. COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said last week that on average 4,200 aid trucks enter Gaza weekly, which corresponds to around 600 daily. Israel's ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, Idit Rosenzweig-Abu, said that 104 aid organizations had filed for registration according to the new guidelines.
Nine were rejected, while 37 did not complete the procedures, she said on X, insisting the registration process "intended to prevent the exploitation of aid by Hamas".

Israel Begins Demolishing 25 Residential Buildings in West Bank Camp
Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Israeli bulldozers began demolishing 25 buildings housing Palestinians in a refugee camp on Wednesday, in what the military said was an effort to root out armed groups in northern areas of the occupied West Bank. The buildings, home to some 100 families, are in the Nur Shams camp, a frequent site of clashes between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli forces. Israeli military bulldozers and cranes tore through the structures early Wednesday, sending thick plumes of dust into the air, an AFP journalist reported. Many residents watched from a distance. The military said the demolitions were part of an operation against gunmen. "Following ongoing counterterrorism activity by Israeli security forces in the area of Nur Shams in northern Samaria, the commander of the Central Command, Major General Avi Bluth, ordered the demolition of several structures due to a clear and necessary operational need," the military told AFP in a statement. "Areas in northern Samaria have become a significant center of terrorist activity, operating from within densely populated civilian areas." Earlier this year, the military launched an operation it said was aimed at dismantling Palestinian armed groups from camps in northern West Bank -- including Nur Shams, Tulkarem and Jenin. "Even a year after the beginning of military operations in the area, forces continue to locate ammunition, weapons, and explosive devices used by terrorist organizations, which endanger soldiers and impair operational freedom of action," the military said on Wednesday. Earlier in December, AFP reported residents of the targeted buildings retrieving their belongings, with many saying they had nowhere to go. The demolitions form part of a broader Israeli strategy aimed at easing access for military vehicles within the densely built refugee camps of the West Bank. Israel has occupied the Palestinian territory since 1967. Nur Shams, along with other refugee camps in the West Bank, was established after the creation of Israel in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes in what is now Israel. With time, the camps they established inside the West Bank became dense neighborhoods not under their adjacent cities' authority. Residents pass on their refugee status from one generation to the next. Many residents believe Israel is seeking to destroy the idea of the camps themselves, turning them into regular neighborhoods of the cities they flank, in order to eliminate the refugee issue.

Israel’s Mossad Tells Iranian Protesters ‘We Are with You'
Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Israel's Mossad spy agency issued a direct call urging Iranians to press on with protests, saying it was supporting them "on the ground" as demonstrations spread in capital Tehran and other Iranian cities. "Go out into the streets together. The time has come. We are with you," Mossad wrote in a post on its Farsi-language X account, Israel's army radio reported on Wednesday. "Not just from a distance or through words. We are also with you on the ground."Protests that began on Sunday with Tehran shopkeepers rallying against Iran's worsening economy have spread to other cities, drawing in students as well.
The Iranian rial has dropped against the US dollar and other world currencies, forcing up import prices and hurting retail traders. The appeal also came after talks this week between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, following which Trump warned Iran of fresh strikes if it rebuilt its nuclear or ballistic missile programs.Arch-foes Iran and Israel fought a 12-day war earlier this year, after Israel launched a wave of strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities as well as residential areas, saying it aimed to cripple the country's atomic research and ballistic missile capabilities.
Iran responded with drone and missile attacks on Israel. Later in the conflict, the United States joined Israel in briefly targeting Iranian nuclear sites before a ceasefire was declared. Iran, which does not recognize Israel, has long accused it of conducting sabotage operations against its nuclear facilities and assassinating its scientists. It also backs militant groups around the region as part of its so-called "Axis of Resistance", including Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement Hamas, both of which Israel has fought major wars with Israel in the past two years. Former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July 2024 in an attack attributed to Israel.

‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022
Deepa Parent and William Christou/The Guardian/December 31/2025
Alborz, a textile merchant in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, decided he could no longer sit on the sidelines. He closed his shop and took to the streets, joining merchants across Iran who shuttered their stores and students who took over their campuses to protest against declining economic conditions. The sudden loss of purchasing power pushed Alborz and tens of thousands of other Iranians into the streets, where protests are now entering their fourth day. Students have paralysed university campuses, traders have shut down their stores and demonstrators have blocked off streets in defiance of police. Protests have spread from the capital, Tehran, to cities across Iran. Despite the risk of being jailed for his political activism, the father of four had run out of options. On Sunday, the national currency plunged to a historic low, putting further pressure on Alborz, who was already struggling to provide for his family.
“What will my children eat? Do we have to bring suitcases of cash to simply buy bread? Do you find that normal?” Alborz told the Guardian over the phone, speaking under a pseudonym for fear of security reprisals. The unprecedented depreciation of the national currency on Sunday – when the Iranian rial dropped to 1.42m to the US dollar, a more than 56% decrease in value in six months – was a breaking point for an already struggling economy and population. The plunging currency has caused soaring inflation, with food prices up by 72% on average compared with the same time last year. Iran is also under some of the world’s most intense sanctions, which have spurred inflation as the country struggles to access frozen funds abroad and foreign exchange, something exacerbated by its growing reliance on imports. The protests are the largest in Iran since 2022, when Iranians erupted in anger at the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly. Those protests were violently quashed and ultimately simmered out. Social media in Iran has been filled with videos of protesters chanting anti-government slogans and throwing stones at security forces. In one video from Tehran, a lone man sits blocking the way of security services on motorbikes as crowds of protesters flee from teargas.
Though the protests started as demonstrations against deteriorating living conditions, they have widened to express grievances at the way Iran is being governed. Women’s rights activists, shopkeepers and students have begun chanting “death to the dictator” and “woman, life, freedom” – slogans that could put people in prison. Alborz said: “For years now, we have slowly but surely made significant changes to our lifestyles because of this corrupt government. This was the last nail in the coffin. We wanted this regime gone and now there’s no way this regime will continue.”
The government, still shaken from a brutal 12-day war with Israel in June which rocked the foundations of the Iranian regime, has called for dialogue with protest leaders. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said the government should listen to the “legitimate demands” of protesters. But they are wary of the offer, believing it to be an attempt to co-opt their demands and kill the momentum of the rare protest movement.
“You must be naive to think Iranians trust this government or the regime,” said Farhad, a 19-year-old university student active in the protest movement who spoke under a pseudonym. He and other students described how security services had confiscated student IDs and beaten and arrested some protesters. A protester in Tehran sent the Guardian a picture of a metal pellet, which they said was shot at them by security forces. The Guardian could not independently verify the claim of the protester. “If the administration wanted to talk, they wouldn’t fire teargas, shoot at protesters and if dialogue is what they wanted, they would not have executed protesters in 2023. There is no willingness from any of us to talk to them, we want the mullahs gone and we want democracy,” Farhad added. As the Iranian government dealt with protests at home, it was also facing threats from abroad. On Monday, the US president, Donald Trump, flirted with the idea of striking Iran again, suggesting there could be renewed nuclear activity in Iran – telling reporters if there was, “we’ll knock them down”. Iran has rejected claims it is enriching uranium and has said its nuclear programme is peaceful.On Monday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said in a statement it would confront any “sedition, unrest” or security threats. The IRGC said: “Enemies are seeking to sow the seeds of sedition within Iranian society through cognitive warfare, psychological operations, falsified narratives, fear-mongering and encouragement of capitulation to them.”Despite intimidation from authorities, protesters said they were not cowed. They expected trade unions to soon join the merchants in striking. “Yesterday, we blocked roads and stopped the security forces from advancing. People sat on the roads and chanted that they could kill us, but we wouldn’t let them pass. We are not going to open shops until the regime weakens further,” said Alborz.

Iranians try to access local government building on fourth day of protests
Reuters/December 31/2025
Iranian protesters tried to break into a local government building in the southern Fars Province on Wednesday, state media ‍said, on a fourth day of demonstrations over the cost of living that have prompted an unusual government offer of dialogue. Protests over high inflation and a slump in the value of the local rial currency began among shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday and by Tuesday had spread to several universities in Tehran, with the reported break-in attempt on Wednesday.“A few hours ⁠ago an organized group tried to get into the governorate building in the city of Fasa, their attack failed with the intervention of security forces,” state media said.“The leader of these rioters, a 28-year-old woman, was arrested.”Iran’s Tasnim news agency cited a local official as saying four “attackers” were detained and three members of the security forces had been wounded during the incident. A video carried by state media showed a group of people trying to break open the gate of the building. Reuters verified the location of the footage but was not able to independently verify the timing. The governor of ‍Fasa told state media that “the protests were caused by inflation and economic conditions. Individuals influenced by hostile channels and media participated in them... the situation ‍is back to normal.”Iranian authorities have ‍responded to previous protests ⁠over issues ranging from prices, drought, women’s rights and political freedoms with ‌forceful security measures and extensive arrests. This time ⁠the government said it would set ‍up a “dialogue mechanism” with leaders of the demonstrations, the first major protests since Israeli and US strikes on Iran in June, which prompted ⁠widespread expressions of patriotic solidarity. It has not said how the mechanism would work. Iran’s economy has faced significant challenges for years following the reimposition ‌of US sanctions in 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew from an international agreement concerning Iran’s nuclear program during his first term. Iran’s rial currency has lost nearly half its value against the dollar in 2025, with inflation reaching 42.5 percent in December in a country where unrest has repeatedly flared in recent years. In September, United Nations sanctions were reinstated, and Reuters ‍reported in October that Iranian authorities held multiple high-level meetings to address economic instability, find ways to bypass sanctions, and handle public discontent. In 2022, Iran faced protests across the country over price hikes, including for bread, a major staple. Over the same period and into 2023, the country’s clerical rulers faced the boldest unrest in years triggered by the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the ‌morality police, who enforce a strict female dress code.

Iran protesters try to break into government building as unrest continues
Caroline Hawley - Diplomatic Correspondent/BBC/December 31/2025
Protesters in Iran have tried to break into a local government building in the southern province of Fars, on a fourth day of demonstrations sparked by a currency collapse. Officials said three police officers were injured and four people arrested in the city of Fasa. Confrontations were also been reported in the western provinces of Hamedan and Lorestan. The authorities in the capital, Tehran, had declared Wednesday a bank holiday - in an apparent effort to quell the unrest. In video that emerged on social media and was verified by the BBC, a crowd is filmed breaking the gate of the governor's office in Fasa. Then, in another post, security men are seen shooting in response. Clouds of tear gas rise in front of shuttered shops. Across the country, schools, universities and public institutions were closed because of the last-minute public holiday announced by the Iranian government. It was ostensibly to save energy because of the cold weather, though it was seen by many Iranians as an attempt to contain the protests. They began in Tehran on Sunday - among shopkeepers angered by another sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency against the US dollar on the open market. By Tuesday, university students were involved and they had spread to several cities, with people chanting against the country's clerical rulers. The protests have been the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was accused by morality police of not wearing her veil properly. But they have not been on the same scale. To prevent any escalation, tight security is now reported in the areas of Tehran where the demonstrations began. President Masoud Pezeshkian has said his government will listen to the "legitimate demands" of the protesters. But the prosecutor general, Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, has also warned that any attempt to create instability would be met with what he called a "decisive response".

Iran Government Building Attacked as Top Prosecutor Responds to Protests
Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
A government building in southern Iran was attacked on Wednesday, authorities said, as the country's top prosecutor warned of a "decisive response" to any attempt to create instability after days of economic protests. Spontaneous protests, driven by dissatisfaction at Iran's economic stagnation, began on Sunday in Tehran's largest mobile phone market, where shopkeepers shuttered their businesses, and have since drawn in students across the country. "A portion of the provincial governors' office door and its glass were destroyed in an attack by a number of people," said Hamed Ostovar, the head of the judiciary in the city of Fasa, as quoted by the justice ministry's Mizan agency, without specifying how the attack was carried out.  The attack came after the country's prosecutor general said the protestor's economic concerns were legitimate, but warned action would be taken if necessary.
"Peaceful livelihood protests are part of social and understandable realities," Mohammad Movahedi-Azad told state media. "Any attempt to turn economic protests into a tool of insecurity, destruction of public property, or implementation of externally-designed scenarios will inevitably be met with a legal, proportionate and decisive response." His comments came days after the Mossad intelligence agency of Iran's arch-foe Israel posted on social media that it was "with you on the ground" in a message to Iranian protesters. Posting on its Persian-language X account, the spy agency encouraged Iranians to "go out into the streets together". Iran, which does not recognize Israel, has long accused it of conducting sabotage operations against its nuclear facilities and assassinating its scientists.
Fighting for food -
The rallies have since built momentum, with students at 10 universities in the capital and in other cities, including Iran's most prestigious institutions, joining in on Tuesday. The vice-president of the University of Tehran, Mohammad Reza Taghidokt, told the Iranian Students' News Agency that four students were arrested on Tuesday and released overnight. Nevertheless, the protests remain limited in number and concentrated in central Tehran, with shops elsewhere in the sprawling metropolis of 10 million people unaffected. Before the attack in Fasa, Iranian media had not reported any new protests on Wednesday. Iran's economy has been in the doldrums for years, with heavy US and international sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program weighing heavily on it. The currency, the rial, has also plunged in recent months, losing more than a third of its value against the US dollar since last year. Some basic necessities are becoming unaffordable for a portion of the population, which has been suffering from international sanctions against Iran for decades. "Everyone here is fighting for a scrap of bread," said one protester interviewed Tuesday by the daily newspaper Etemad.
Last-minute bank holiday -
Schools, banks and public institutions were closed on Wednesday for a bank holiday, with officials saying the directive was due to the cold weather and the need to save energy. The capital's prestigious Beheshti and Allameh Tabataba'i universities announced that classes would be held online throughout next week for the same reason, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. The authorities have not linked the bank holiday to the protests. Tehran is experiencing daytime temperatures in the low single digits, which is not unusual for the time of year. Weekends in Iran begin on Thursdays, while this Saturday marks a long-standing national holiday. Iran is no stranger to nationwide protests, but the latest demonstrations have not come close to the last major outbreak in 2022 triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman. Her death in custody after being arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women sparked a wave of anger across the country. Several hundred people were killed, including dozens of members of the security forces. There were also widespread protests in 2019, sparked by a sharp increase in the price of petrol.

Iran Appoints New Central Bank Governor After Record Currency Fall and Mass Protests
Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Iran on Wednesday appointed a new governor to the central bank after the former one resigned following a record currency fall against the US dollar that sparked large protests. The plummeting of the rial, Iran's currency, sparked the largest protests in the country in three years, with rallies that began Sunday and continued until Tuesday. A report by the official IRNA news agency said President Masoud Pezeshkian’s Cabinet appointed Abdolnasser Hemmati, a former economics minister, as new governor of the Central Bank of Iran. He replaces Mohammad Reza Farzin, who resigned on Monday. Experts say a 40% inflation rate led to public discontent. The US dollar traded at 1.38 million rials on Wednesday, compared to 430,000 when Farzin took office in 2022. Many traders and shopkeepers closed their businesses and took to the streets of Tehran and other cities to protest. The new governor's agenda will included a focus on controlling inflation and strengthening the currency, as well as addressing the mismanagement of banks, the government’s spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani wrote on X. Hemmati, 68, previously served as minister of economic and financial affairs under Pezeshkian. In March parliament dismissed Hemmati for alleged mismanagement and accusations his policies hurt the strength of Iran’s rial against hard currencies.A combination of the currency's rapid depreciation and inflationary pressure has pushed up the prices of food and other daily necessities, adding to strain on household budgets already under pressure due to Western sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. Inflation is expected to worsen with a gasoline price change introduced in recent weeks. Iran’s currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar at the time of the 2015 nuclear accord that lifted international sanctions in exchange for tight controls on Iran’s nuclear program. That deal unraveled after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from it in 2018, during his first term.

Türkiye Detains 125 ISIS Suspects in Nationwide Sweep
Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Türkiye on Wednesday detained scores of people suspected of affiliation with the ISIS group during nationwide raids, the interior minister announced on X. "We captured 125 ISIS suspects in simultaneous operations carried out in 25 provinces this morning," Ali Yerlikaya said. Türkiye has staged a number of raids targeting militant suspects after three police officers were killed Monday during an operation against the extremist group in Yalova in the northwest. The hours-long clash also left six ISIS members dead, all Turkish nationals. A day later, the security forces arrested 357 people during another operation targeting ISIS. Wednesday's raids took place in Istanbul and 24 other provinces including Ankara and Yalova, the minister said. Yerlikaya shared a video excerpt in which the security forces raided several suspects' homes, some of whom could be seen with their hands cuffed behind their backs. "Those who seek to harm our brotherhood, our unity, our togetherness ... will only face the might of our state and the unity of our nation," he wrote.

Turkey Decries Cyprus–Greece–Israel Security Talks
Sinan Ciddi & William Doran/FDD-Policy Brief/December 31/2025
A new “axis of evil” has arisen in the eastern Mediterranean Sea — at least according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s slavish media. The sharp reaction was brought about by a trilateral summit between Cypriot, Greek, and Israeli leaders in Jerusalem on December 22. Although no formal defense agreement was penned, the three partners expressed a desire to deepen their joint defense and counterterrorism efforts. Their vision to “usher in an era of stability, prosperity, and cooperation” between Europe and the Middle East signals a firm rejection of Turkish irredentism and strongarming.
Ankara Fears a Challenge to Its Domination Bid in Eastern Mediterranean. The Jerusalem summit, followed by an agreement on joint military exercises announced on December 29, expands on existing plans for Mediterranean security in the “3+1” system with Washington –– an informal energy and security partnership between the three Mediterranean countries and the United States, currently engaging in joint naval exercises, defense technology sharing, and counterterrorism programs. It is also a coordinated response to Turkey’s desire to expand its maritime claims through its “Blue Homeland” doctrine, envisioning larger sovereign Turkish claims over the Aegean and Mediterranean seas in the region and projecting force through deployment of armed drones and heavy troop presence from Northern Cyprus against Greece and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed the group’s opposition to “those who fantasize [that] they can restore their empires,” referring to Erdogan. While Turkish Defense Ministry Spokesman Zeki Akturk claimed the trilateral group posed no military threat, pro-Erdogan media raised alarm over the summit members’ “encirclement” of Turkey. Ultranationalist media outlet Yeni Safak deemed Israel the “number one threat” to Turkey in response to the Jerusalem summit.
Turkish Offensive Activities Threaten U.S. Partners and Embolden Iran
Turkey matched its rejection of the Jerusalem summit with military activities threatening the trilateral group’s members. On December 24, Greek fighter jets intercepted Turkish aircraft violating Greek airspace over the southern Aegean Sea — only one in a series of recent Turkish violations. These provocations have convinced Greece of the need for closer coordination with Cyprus and Israel, in addition to its NATO ties. Turkey is a member of NATO, too. The Turkish Defense Ministry has sought ways to restrict Israeli activities while backing enemies of the United States. On December 25, Israeli media reported that Turkey has begun efforts to build and operate early-warning radar stations in Syria to track Israeli aircraft, hindering future Israeli air operations against Iran. Turkish Defense Ministry Director General Ilkay Altindag called Iran’s security an “integral part of Turkey’s security” during a visit to the Islamic Republic on December 24. Ankara’s threatening and escalatory posture against U.S. allies must not be ignored. U.S. President Donald Trump should use the opportunity during his meeting with Netanyahu to express Washington’s support for the trio as one that helps secure regional security. The United States should see Ankara’s rebuke of the Jerusalem summit as further evidence of why Turkey should remain ineligible to be re-admitted into the F-35 stealth fighter program. Through its rhetoric and military posture, Turkey has demonstrated that its acquisition of cutting-edge U.S. military platforms would only serve to undermine the security of key American allies and raises the risks of regional armed conflict.
**Sinan Ciddi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where William Doran is an intern. Follow Sinan on X @SinanCiddi. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Nearly 25 ISIS Fighters Killed or Captured in Syria, US Military Says
Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
The US military said Tuesday that nearly 25 operatives of the ISIS group were killed or captured in Syria this month following an ambush that killed two US troops and an American civilian interpreter. The US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement on X that 11 missions were carried out over the past 10 days and followed initial strikes against ISIS weapons sites and infrastructure on Dec. 19, which hit 70 targets across central Syria. In the operations since, the US military and other forces from the region, including Syria, killed at least seven ISIS members, captured others and eliminated four weapons caches, US Central Command said. “We will not relent,” Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads the command, said in the statement. “We are steadfast in commitment to working with regional partners to root out the ISIS threat posed to US and regional security.”Targets ranged from senior ISIS members who were being closely monitored by military officials to lower-level foot soldiers, according to a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations. The official said a growing collaboration between the United States and Syria's relatively new government meant that US forces were able to attack ISIS in areas of the country where they previously did not operate. Syrian forces were the driving force behind some of the missions against the militant group this year, the official added. The official compared the growing cooperation to that between the US and Iraq in fighting ISIS a decade ago and said the goal, like in Iraq, is to ultimately hand over the effort fully to the Syrians. The latest operations followed a Dec. 13 ambush that occurred near the ancient city of Palmyra while American and Syrian security officials had gathered for a meeting over lunch. Two members of the Iowa National Guard and a civilian interpreter from Michigan were killed, while three other US troops and members of Syria’s security forces were wounded. The gunman, who was killed, had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard and recently had been reassigned because of suspicions he might be affiliated with ISIS, Syrian officials said. The initial retaliatory strike on ISIS targets in Syria, which included fighter jets from Jordan, was a major test for the warming ties between the US and Syria since last year's ouster of autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad.
President Donald Trump said Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack."

Hadhramaut Governor to Asharq Al-Awsat: UAE Has Started Withdrawing its Forces, Door Still Open to STC
Riyadh: Abdulhadi Habtor/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Hadhramaut Governor Salem Ahmed al-Khanbashi called on Wednesday inhabitants of the governorate who are involved with the Southern Transitional Council to "return home" and join their "brothers in the National Shield Forces". In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he pledged that they will be welcomed in the ranks and that their "affairs will be arranged."He also confirmed that the United Arab Emirates has started withdrawing its forces from all positions they were stationed at, including Hadhramaut and al-Shabwah. He said they pulled out from the al-Rayan airport and Balhaf in Shabwah.
The forces had a limited presence in the al-Rabwa and al-Dabba areas in Hadhramaut . Their role was limited to supervising the STC's security support forces, he explained. Sources confirmed that the UAE started pulling out its forces from Shabwah on Tuesday at the request of Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) Chairman Dr. Rashad al-Alimi.Al-Khanbashi stressed that the only way to resolve the current crisis lies in the withdrawal of the STC from Hadhramaut and Mahra. "The door is still open and we hope our brothers in the STC will seize the opportunity to avert the eruption of any fighting in Hadhramaut and the rest of the country," he added. "They should return to where they came from and then we can kick of political dialogue about any future formations without resorting to imposing a status quo by force," he stressed. Moreover, he underlined the readiness of the National Shield Forces, which are overseen by al-Alimi, to deploy in Hadhramaut and Mahra, in line with the state of emergency that he declared on Tuesday. An additional 3,000 Hadhramaut residents, who have military experience, are also prepared to support their brothers in the National Shield Forces, al-Khanbashi revealed. He said that coordination with Saudi Arabia was at its highest levels. The Kingdom views Hadhramaut and Mahra as part of its "strategic security depth," he went on to say. "Our shared borders stretch over 700 kms, so the security and stability of the two provinces are part of the Kingdom's strategic security."Saudi Arabia does not want Hadhramaut and Mahra to turn into dangerous hubs that can threaten it, he continued. Al-Khanbashi added that al-Alimi's orders on Tuesday came at the right time to prevent saboteurs from trying to undermine the situation.

STC forces withdraw from positions in Yemen’s Hadramout
Al Arabiya English/December 31/2025
Forces affiliated with Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC) began evacuating and leaving their deployment sites in Hadramout on Wednesday, with only limited displays of weaponry.
Sources told Al Arabiya that military vehicles and STC fighters were seen withdrawing from several locations across Hadramout. On Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates reaffirmed its commitment to Saudi Arabia’s security and stability and said it respects the Kingdom’s sovereignty and national security. Abu Dhabi rejected any actions that could threaten Saudi or regional security, stressing that the two countries’ historic and brotherly ties are a cornerstone of regional stability. It also emphasized full coordination with Riyadh. In a statement responding to Saudi assertions that the UAE’s actions in Yemen were “extremely dangerous,” Abu Dhabi said its position since unrest began in the eastern Yemeni provinces of Hadramout and al-Mahra has focused on containing tensions, supporting de-escalation, and pushing for understandings that preserve security, stability, and civilian protection, in coordination with Saudi Arabia.Earlier, Saudi Arabia issued a statement expressing regret over what it described as UAE pressure on STC forces. Riyadh said this pressure prompted the STC to carry out military operations near the Kingdom’s southern border in Hadramout and al-Mahra, describing this as a threat to Saudi national security and to stability in Yemen and the wider region. Saudi Arabia added that the UAE’s steps were highly dangerous and said they contradict the principles of the Arab Coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government, and do not serve efforts to restore security and stability in the country. The Kingdom stressed the importance of the UAE responding to a request by Yemen’s government to withdraw its military forces within 24 hours, and called for an end to any military or financial support for any party inside Yemen.
Coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Maliki said that on Saturday and Sunday, two ships arriving from the UAE’s Fujairah port entered the port of Mukalla without obtaining official clearance from the Joint Forces Command.
He added that the crews had disabled their tracking systems and unloaded large quantities of weapons and combat vehicles to support STC forces in eastern Yemen – specifically Hadramout and al-Mahra – with the aim of fueling the conflict. Al-Maliki said this constituted a clear violation of de-escalation efforts and peaceful resolution initiatives, as well as a breach of UN Security Council Resolution 2216 from 2015. Al-Maliki also said that, at the request of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council chairman Rashad al-Alimi, coalition forces took military measures to protect civilians in Hadramout and al-Mahra. He warned of the dangers posed by these weapons and the escalation they represented. Coalition air forces carried out a limited military strike targeting the weapons and combat vehicles unloaded at Mukalla port, after documenting the shipment. He said the operation complied with international humanitarian law and was conducted to avoid collateral damage.The Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council welcomed Riyadh’s calls for stability and commitment to Yemen’s security. Council chairman al-Alimi said Yemen “cannot afford to open new wars of attrition,” adding: “We are strong with the support of the Saudi-led coalition.” Yemen has also cancelled its joint defense agreement with the UAE and formally demanded the withdrawal of Emirati forces from Yemeni territory. The Yemeni government also welcomed the coalition’s actions following the limited airstrike.

US envoy meets Yemen’s president, stresses need to counter Houthi threats
Al Arabiya English/December 31/2025
The US envoy for Yemen met with Yemen’s president on Wednesday to discuss the importance of the country to regional security. Ambassador Steve Fagin met head of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) Rashad al-Alimi, the US Embassy in Yemen said. Discussions also touched on “strengthening bilateral cooperation in countering the Houthis and other terrorist threats, including al-Qaeda and ISIS,” the US Embassy said. Earlier in the day, Fagin met Yemen’s top diplomat. “The Ambassador stressed the need to preserve security and stability in Yemen and focus on countering the Houthi threat,” the US Embassy said in a post on X.

Gulf Countries, OIC Say Security of Saudi Arabia and GCC States Integral to Region
Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Qatar announced that it is following with great interest the ongoing developments and events in Yemen, reiterating its full support for the legitimate Yemeni government and the importance of preserving Yemen’s unity and territorial integrity, safeguarding the interests of the brotherly Yemeni people, and achieving their aspirations for security, stability, and development. In a statement, the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that the security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council states is integral to the security of Qatar, stemming from the deep-rooted brotherly ties and shared destiny that unite the GCC countries. The ministry commended the statements issued by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, noting that they reflect a commitment to prioritizing the region’s interests, boosting the principles of good neighborliness, and adhering to the foundations and principles enshrined in the Charter of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Qatar will remain at the forefront of countries supporting efforts to promote dialogue and diplomacy as the optimal path to achieving prosperity, security, and stability for the region and its peoples, stressed the ministry. Kuwait's foreign ministry issued a similar statement, saying the security of Saudi Arabia and GCC states is a fundamental pillar of Gulf collective security, rooted in the bonds of brotherhood and shared destiny among them. It expressed continued support for regional and international efforts aimed at promoting dialogue and peace, emphasizing diplomacy as the most effective path to achieving security, stability, and lasting peace in the region. Bahrain, chair of the current session of the GCC, praised the “pivotal role played by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in supporting the security and stability of Yemen, stemming from their brotherly responsibilities and shared commitment to the security and stability of the Gulf region within the GCC framework.” The Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed its “confidence in the wisdom of the leaderships of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and in their ability to contain any differences within the framework of the GCC, in line with the principles of the GCC based on solidarity, mutual understanding, and unity, serving the shared aspirations to instill security, stability, peace, and prosperity for the benefit of the region and its peoples.” The ministry reiterated Bahrain’s “firm and supportive stance toward all regional and international initiatives and efforts aimed at reaching a comprehensive and lasting political solution in Yemen, in accordance with the GCC initiative and its executive mechanism, the outcomes of the Comprehensive National Dialogue Conference, and relevant UN Security Council resolutions.”
Jordan also praised Saudi Arabia and the UAE's roles in supporting Yemen. Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Hissein Brahim Taha underlined the organization’s firm stance in support of Yemen, its sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity.  He reiterated the OIC’s categorical rejection of any actions or attempts that would undermine Yemen’s unity or compromise its constitutional legitimacy and national institutions, in light of recent developments in the country. He renewed the OIC’s full support for the legitimate Yemeni government, represented by the President of the Presidential Leadership Council. He stressed the importance of preserving and strengthening state institutions in order to realize the Yemeni people’s aspirations for security, stability, and development. Taha condemned any actions or practices by the Southern Transitional Council that pose a direct threat to Yemen’s unity, undermine peace efforts, and prolong the conflict. “Any disruption to Yemen’s security and stability also threatens peace and security across the region,” he warned.  He welcomed the announcement of the UAE’s withdrawal of forces from Yemen, describing it as a “constructive step that supports de-escalation efforts and spares the blood of the Yemeni people.” He further stressed that the security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia “constitute inviolable red lines.” “Any threat to the Kingdom’s security is a direct threat to the security of the entire region and the Islamic world,” Taha added, underscoring the OIC’s “full solidarity with Saudi Arabia in all measures taken to safeguard its national security.” He stressed “the need to continue supporting political and diplomatic efforts aimed at reaching a comprehensive and lasting solution to the Yemeni crisis.” He called on all Yemeni parties “to uphold legitimacy, renounce violence, and prioritize dialogue and the higher interests of Yemen and its people, in order to achieve security, stability, and development while preserving the country’s unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 31/2025/January 01/2026
Just Wars and Unjust Regimes
Alberto M. Fernandez/National Catholic Register/December 31/2025
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/just-wars-and-unjust-regimes
COMMENTARY: What will be the Trump administration’s response to the regimes of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba?
That war is almost always a calamity seems obvious. It was Ben Franklin who famously wrote that “there was never a good war or a bad peace,” but he said so in a letter written after the military victory and treaty that secured American independence, a conflict that he had wholeheartedly supported and worked to bring about.
Today there is much talk of war with Venezuela, and certainly, there has been criticism, including by Catholics, of the Trump administration’s efforts toward that country. Edward Feser was scathing recently in elucidating at great length why the administration’s actions fall short of Catholic conditions for a just war.
I am no canon lawyer nor a scholar on St. Thomas Aquinas, and I am not seeking to defend or excuse all or any actions per se by the Trump administration. And yet I am deeply troubled by the legalistic mindset that obsesses on what the Americans cannot say or do and seemingly ignores the nature of the regime in question. I also know enough about foreign policy to understand that governments often use one public explanation — say, fighting the drug war — when they are seeking to do something else: regime change.
Regime change by the United States in Latin America has a long, often ugly and controversial history. More recently, we saw the Clinton administration (1994) overthrow a Haitian regime to restore a legally elected president; President Bush overthrow the Panamanian regime of Manuel Noriega in 1989; and President Reagan remove the Marxist regime in Grenada in 1983. One of these actions (Haiti) had U.N. approval and the others did not. But in all three cases, the Americans removed “unjust” regimes that had either ignored election results or, in the case of Grenada, had actually just overthrown and murdered the country’s previous leftist rulers.
Venezuela today is, of course, very similar to the political situation in all three of those countries. Presidential elections were held in Venezuela in August 2024 and, by all reputable accounts, Nicolas Maduro not only lost, but lost overwhelmingly to an alliance led by diplomat Edmundo González.
The Maduro regime had done all it could to rig the elections, prohibiting the popular María Corina Machado from running, and yet still lost. But the regime thought — correctly so far — that it could brazenly get out of this dilemma through brute force and repression.
To understand the situation in Venezuela, one has to look at it within the context of two other countries — Cuba and Nicaragua. All three are leftist regimes, close allies and hostile to the United States, of course, but it is more than that. The regimes in Caracas and Managua are ideological and national security offspring of the communist dictatorship in Cuba. Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega has been in power (this time) for 17 years; the Chavez/Maduro regime has been in power for 26 years. The same regime — the Castro family/Communist Party/military amalgam — has been in power in Havana for 67 years.
Venezuela’s Maduro was not only trained as part of a communist cadre in Cuba; some consider him to have been an “asset” of Cuban Intelligence. The three dictatorships sustain and nurture each other, with the relationship between Cuba and Venezuela being particularly intimate.
These are unjust regimes in every sense of the word. Not only do they maintain themselves in power undemocratically — Cuba is a one-party state, of course — but all three oppress the Catholic Church to a greater or lesser extent (Nicaragua’s Ortega is particularly zealous and blatant in doing so while the Cubans and Venezuelans usually favor indirect methods).
All three have thousands of political prisoners (Venezuela has slightly more than Cuba right now) and hundreds of thousands of political exiles. All three rule through predatory economic practices favoring a ruling political elite. All three are traffickers in the human misery of their own impoverished and hungry citizens, Cuba especially has collapsed economically in the past five years. And all three regimes maintain power by force, by monopolizing the coercive power and violence of the state to rule, seemingly — if they can — forever. I don’t know what the Trump administration will eventually do in Venezuela. Right now, the policy seems to be a quarantine on regime oil exports for the next couple of months to try to force Maduro — an illegitimate ruler like Noriega, Haiti’s Raoul Cédras and Grenada’s Hudson Austin — out of power. Maduro’s Cuban advisers are doing all they can to ensure that he perseveres and survives the pressure. Venezuela’s oil industry is in tatters but still supplies at least 40% of Cuba’s oil, part of which the regime sells for hard currency. While some Americans fear that Trump will go too far in the Caribbean, many Latin Americans fear that he will not go far enough and that Maduro will endure.
Rome in the fourth century is very removed from our time. But it was then that St. Augustine of Hippo in his City of God compared unjust states to criminal enterprises: “Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies?” These criminal bands can grow (perhaps like Maduro’s Cartel de los Soles) into states “not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity.” Impunity reigns in these three regimes. I bow before the learned Catholic sages who tell me that Trump, a non-Catholic, is in danger of waging an unjust war, or indeed that he is already doing so, in the Caribbean. But I also think of the Catholics (and non-Catholics) of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, enduring decades of misery and oppression at the hands of these unjust regimes, these criminal bands in power, condemned to a wretched existence with little hope, disarmed and distraught. These tyrants have honed their malevolent ability to use violence, propaganda, and manipulating the vagaries of the international system to perpetuate themselves in power. Who will liberate the people from this injustice?
**Alberto M. Fernandez Alberto M. Fernandez is a former U.S. diplomat and a contributor at EWTN News.

Why Israel and Trump Should Be Cautious About Pakistani Troops in Gaza
Anna Mahjar-Barducci/Gatestone Institute/December 31, 2025
Pakistan does not officially recognize Israel, and has never designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. It may well have an interest in making sure that Hamas can continue its "resistance" -- meaning terrorism. These examples demonstrate how freely Hamas operatives function within Pakistan. Allowing Pakistani troops into Gaza would therefore pose serious infiltration and counterintelligence risks. Unlike a genuinely neutral peacekeeping force, Pakistani soldiers may be unwilling — or ideologically disinclined — to confront Hamas. In a worst-case scenario, some elements could covertly assist Hamas fighters in evading disarmament. Pakistani media have reported that Islamabad does not wish to be perceived as a "B-team of the Israeli military focused solely on disarming Hamas." Such statements underscore the likelihood of operational friction and divided loyalties on the ground.
Another major risk involves intelligence leakage.... Reports have previously alleged ISI involvement in facilitating Hamas outreach across South Asia, including visits to Bangladesh and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir to energize jihadist networks.
For Israel, the implications are clear. A Pakistani role in Gaza could undermine efforts to dismantle Hamas's military infrastructure. In a mission intended to stabilize Gaza and dismantle Hamas, entrusting security to a state that openly legitimizes the terror group risks transforming the stabilization force into a Trojan horse for Hamas's survival. A Pakistani role in Gaza could undermine efforts to dismantle Hamas's military infrastructure. In a mission intended to stabilize Gaza and dismantle Hamas, entrusting security to a state that openly legitimizes the terror group risks transforming the stabilization force into a Trojan horse for Hamas's survival. Israeli officials report that three countries have agreed to Washington's request to participate in a postwar Gaza "International Stabilization Force" (ISF). The identities of all three have not been disclosed, though Indonesia may be one of them. Earlier reports also identified Pakistan as a possible contributor to the ISF. In addition, Pakistan does not officially recognize Israel, and has never designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. It may well have an interest in making sure that Hamas can continue its "resistance" -- meaning terrorism.
Given the sensitivity of any postwar security arrangement in Gaza, the credibility and neutrality of participating forces are critical. A closer examination of Pakistan's record raises serious concerns about whether it can play a constructive or impartial role in such a mission.
Pakistan's military and its primary intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have long been accused of maintaining relationships with Islamist militant organizations. For decades, the ISI helped nurture Pakistan-based groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), both of which espouse ideologies closely aligned with Hamas. These links cast doubt on Pakistan's ability to confront Hamas in a postwar Gaza environment. Since the October 7, 2023 massacre, Pakistan's posture toward Hamas has become increasingly encouraging. Hamas representatives have been allowed to operate freely on Pakistani soil, participate in public events, and build alliances with Pakistan-based terror outfits. Such behavior directly undermines Western efforts to isolate Hamas and raises questions about whether the United States should continue to regard Pakistan as a "major non-NATO ally."
One figure illustrating this trend is Naji Zaheer, the current Hamas special representative in Pakistan. After October 7, Zaheer significantly intensified his political activity, working openly to build legitimacy and support for Hamas. He has appeared as a guest of honor at major events and has become a regular presence at anti-Israel rallies and conferences.
On December 8, 2024, Zaheer attended the inflammatory "Death to Israel" conference in Peshawar. Addressing the gathering, he framed the Gaza war as a "war of Islam" that would continue "until Israel is eliminated and the Jews flee."
While Zaheer's activities highlight Hamas's grassroots mobilization within Pakistan, the involvement of Khaled Qaddoumi — the Hamas special representative in Tehran — points to something even more troubling: institutional and political endorsement. Since October 2023, Qaddoumi has actively participated in rallies and events hosted by Pakistani institutions, signaling official tolerance and, at times, tacit support. In January 2024, Pakistan's Upper House of Parliament hosted Qaddoumi in a formal session. Senator Mushahid Hussain of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), one of the three major mainstream political parties in Pakistan, emphasized the significance of welcoming Qaddoumi. Hussain stated that the Senate "takes pride" in hosting him, and praised Hamas as a "democratically elected organization," referring to Qaddoumi as a "mujahid" representing Palestinian aspirations. He further declared that Pakistan had been the first Muslim country to donate $1 million to the Hamas government and lauded the "Palestinian mujahideen of Hamas" for shattering "the myth of Israeli impregnability."
This level of parliamentary reverence reflects a deep ideological alignment with Hamas. Equally alarming are Pakistan's ties to jihadist groups that openly link their struggles to Hamas's cause. Organizations such as Pakistan-based JeM and LeT have explicitly framed their "jihad" against India as part of the same Islamist campaign Hamas wages against Israel. That convergence became unmistakable in February 2025 at a conference in Pakistan-held Kashmir titled "Kashmir Solidarity and Hamas Operation Al-Aqsa Flood." Hamas representatives, including Qaddoumi, shared the stage with UN-designated terrorist leaders from JeM and LeT. Speakers publicly vowed to coordinate closely with Hamas, uniting their respective conflicts under a pan-Islamist banner. These examples demonstrate how freely Hamas operatives function within Pakistan. Allowing Pakistani troops into Gaza would therefore pose serious infiltration and counterintelligence risks. Unlike a genuinely neutral peacekeeping force, Pakistani soldiers may be unwilling — or ideologically disinclined — to confront Hamas. In a worst-case scenario, some elements could covertly assist Hamas fighters in evading disarmament.
These concerns are not hypothetical. Pakistani media have reported that Islamabad does not wish to be perceived as a "B-team of the Israeli military focused solely on disarming Hamas." Such statements underscore the likelihood of operational friction and divided loyalties on the ground.
Another major risk involves intelligence leakage. If deployed in Gaza, Pakistani units could quietly pass sensitive information to Hamas or its regional backers under the guise of cooperation. Reports have previously alleged ISI involvement in facilitating Hamas outreach across South Asia, including visits to Bangladesh and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir to energize jihadist networks. For Israel, the implications are clear. A Pakistani role in Gaza could undermine efforts to dismantle Hamas's military infrastructure. In a mission intended to stabilize Gaza and dismantle Hamas, entrusting security to a state that openly legitimizes the terror group risks transforming the stabilization force into a Trojan horse for Hamas's survival.
© 2025 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute.

The Dangers of a 'Mutated ISIS'
Amr el-Shobaki/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
No one can read ISIS’s infamous manuscript “The Management of Savagery” can fail to see that the organization’s ideology built around a “project of vengeance” that has no coherent doctrine like those developed by other violent fundamentalist groups like al-Jihad and al-Jamaa Islamiya, or even their transnational successor, al-Qaeda, which had been structured around rigid doctrinal foundations and puritanical interpretations of certain religious that justify violence and terrorism.
This distinct, simplified, and superficial ideological structure is more a vengeful fantasy than fundamentalist jurisprudence. That has allowed its cells to remain dangerous in several places, especially Syria, despite the collapse of their infrastructure.
The truth is that this simplistic, superficial ideological framework made adopting the group’s mindset universally accessible, unlike the lengthy doctrinal education required of al-Qaeda leaders and other jihadist organizations. Individuals driven by a desire for revenge on religious, sectarian, or political grounds could be recruited by ISIS to kill and terrorize Americans, as happened in Palmyra and led to US military intervention, or Syrians, as they did in the attack on the Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque in Homs.
It became apparent that there is essentially no difference between those calling themselves the “Islamic State” and “Ansar al-Sunna;” neither has restraints with regard to killing civilians or soldiers anywhere.
Many still remember the crime of targeting the al-Rawda Mosque in Egypt’s Sinai, which resulted in one of the highest casualty counts in the history of terrorist attacks on a house worship: 305 innocent worshippers were killed in November 2017. It goes without saying that it was a “Sunni mosque.”It is true that ISIS did not “officially” claim responsibility for the attack, but the cells operating in this area - having adopted the mindset of vengeance, terror, and killing children and innocents - were implicated in this heinous crime.
Often described as ISIS’s manifesto, "The Management of Savagery" begins with an introductory chapter titled “The System that Has Governed the World Since the Sykes–Picot Era,” a contrast with the introductions of other jihadist extremist writings, which were rooted entirely in jurisprudential arguments, especially the pamphlet “The Charter of Islamic Action” and a lesser extent “The Inevitability of Confrontation” and “The Neglected Duty.”
Perhaps the real dilemma raised by ISIS’s new cells is that their vengeful outlook no longer targets only regimes, as had been the case in Syria or Iraq, but also extends to other organizations and sects, as well as to regional and local power dynamics that have made these cells “deployable” at any moment.
State weakness- the frailty of any state- and political or sectarian tensions create fertile ground for ISIS’s new cells, facilitating their dangerous acts of terrorism. They have the remnants of the organization behind them, as well as a fluid reservoir of vengeful notions that justify any act of violence or terrorism. Indeed, "The Management of Savagery" explicitly opened the door to “benefiting from the experience of non-Islamic movements in managing savagery through mass violence.” It cites John Garang’s movement in South Sudan and leftist movements in Central and South America, presenting them as groups that “excelled in certain practical aspects of managing savagery in those areas.”
The threat of the “new ISIS” does not stem solely from its ability to operate across fragile borders, from the Sahel and the Sahara in Africa to Sinai in earlier years, and now Syria. It is also dangerous because of its doctrinal fluidity, which permits the violation of all sanctities and calls for spilling blood without restraint. Older jihadist organizations certainly launched terrorist attacks and targeted state and security officials they opposed. Even within their rigid ideological frameworks, targeting worshippers in a mosque was almost unthinkable. They had limits: a ceiling on violence and terrorism that ISIS lacks. The latter has become a weakened organization of disconnected cells without coherent doctrinal foundations, but it has no hesitation attacking a mosque, a church, or a hussainiya, and to kill children and women without any religious or organizational restraint.
Capitalizing on political failure, security failures, social fragility, and social tensions: that is ISIS’s “fuel.” Accordingly, we should not be surprised that nearly all violent extremists have conducted jurisprudential revisions and initiatives to hinder violence except ISIS. Quite simply, it has no solid ideological edifice to revise, and that is the source of its danger.

The Arabs’ Challenges and the End of Pretenses to a Unitary Solution
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 31/2025
Until the 1970s, a proclivity for one-size-fits-all solutions to the region's problems had shaped Arab political thought, particularly in the Levant. "Unity,liberation," and, occasionally, socialism initiated by a "national democratic regime," were presented as the pathway for realizing the aspirations of tens of millions, freeing them from the restraints of "artificial borders" or the discrepancies separating each state and society from the others. Meanwhile, minority issues would arise or aggravate, whether ethnic, like the Kurdish question in Iraq, or religious, like the question of Arab Jews and Christians. Proponents of the unitary solution seemed content with either characterizing these "contingent" struggles as regrettable or attributing them to foreign meddling, promising that they would be resolved through this same unitary solution that would eradicate every discrepancy and flatten all differences.
Even civil wars, beginning with Yemen in the early 1960s and then Lebanon in the mid-1970s, were hyper-politicized to safeguard analytics purity and explained as struggles between "right" and "left" and "national liberation" movements resisting "colonialism."Advocates of the unitary solution found a helping hand in disparate events and phenomena like the Algerian Revolution, the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt, the union of Egypt and Syria, and finally, the Palestinian Revolution. Besides the diminishing occurrence of these events and phenomena, those who had relied on them to make their case consistently disregarded or trivialized the problematic elements inherent to each of these episodes. Neither Syria's secession from the "United Arab Republic" nor the Nasserist-Baathist infighting that shook the "national and progressive" camp, nor the fact that the Palestinian Revolution had itself been a defection from Nasserist Arab nationalism, was given the attention it deserved.
As to the first time the unitary solution theory was starkly exposed, rendering its failure to resolve anything blatantly undeniable, it was when Anwar Sadat made his move. With his "initiative" and then the Camp David Accords, it became clear that Egypt's priority (retrieving the territories it had lost in 1967) did not align with the priorities dictated by the unitary solution theory and that the 1973 war had been a fleeting joint effort that paved the way for sustained divergence.
Khomeini's Iran subsequently dealt its own blows to this theory, undermining it in two different respects: firstly, it premised the agenda, which had been founded on Arab nationalism and a progressive worldview, on Islamist grounds; secondly and more importantly, its sectarianization of the region was wholly antithetical to this theory. Sectarianism peaked with the war that Saddam's Iraq had initiated, and it then reached new heights with the war that Lebanese and Iraqi Khomeinist militias waged on the Syrian people.With the Iran-Iraq War hardly behind it, however, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait split the Arab world in two and left the small country that had been attacked with no choice but to seek foreign assistance against the invasion of its "brother."
The fig leaves fell off en masse during this period. The "progressive nationalist regimes," those most invested in the unitary solution theory, were exposed. It became clear they had built despotic, corrupt, and inept dynastic republics and sought to take over their weaker neighbors.
The collapse of the Soviet Union - the patriarch that had been overseeing the implementation of this unitary solution and regional champions, engineering its fronts, arming its militaries and militias, training its spies, and then defending it in the Security Council- occurred within this context.
In turn, the Palestinian question, the "central cause" since the 1946 Inshas Arab Summit, became far less central. The Oslo progress stagnated after the nascent Palestinian Authority performed far below expectations. When it was torn apart by defections, notably the Hamas coup and its subsequent takeover of Gaza, a broad sense of boredom with this seemingly intractable struggle prevailed. Arab states were split between those that became laser-focused on their domestic affairs and those that had retreated in the face of exorbitant costs they could no longer bear. That was before the "cause" was seized by the "Resistance Axis," which made it into a central element of Arab civil wars and tied it to Iran’s expansionist regional project.
In parallel to all of that, an Iraqi question - one that was largely independent and self-contained - arose in 2003. Then came the Arab revolutions that, in their early phases, raised agendas specific to each country that are difficult to link to "the Arab concern that unites us," while what became known as "the Gulf model" rose and garnered appeal that does not intersect with the unitary solution theory at any point. And so, when the war sparked by the October 7 operation broke out, the expectations of the Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese went in radically different directions.
The Welsh critic Raymond Williams viewed every cultural group as comprising three parts: dominant, emergent, and residual. It might be fair to place the unitary solution theory in the category of residual consciousness - the conscious or unconscious ways in which past cultural practices mark societies. "Residual" is not necessarily inconsequential or an abandoned past. It can be dynamic, potent, and consequential, especially when both the dominant and the emergent are weak. This largely applies to our relationship to the unitary solution theory: notions like "the Arab homeland" and "the central cause," and its resonance could well endure into the future as we continue to splinter further apart.

Updated Hamas ‘Narrative’ Signals Confidence About Keeping Power
Mark Dubowitz/FDD-Policy Brief/December 31/2025
Hamas has released an updated version of its apologia for its October 7, 2023, murder of 1,200 people in Israel in a renewed effort to rally Palestinians and Israel’s opponents abroad. The glossy manifesto — published online in English and Arabic — remains saturated with lies, moral inversion, and florid prose. It is unlikely to broaden Hamas’s appeal. But it does reveal something more important: a growing confidence that Hamas can retain power in Gaza, with international backing, as the ceasefire hardens into stasis. This month’s publication, “Our Narrative… Al-Aqsa Flood: Two Years of Steadfastness and the Will for Liberation,” expands on a nearly identical pamphlet released on Jan. 21, 2024. The authorship — the Hamas Media Office — and much of the content are unchanged. The Oct. 7 massacre and hostage-taking spree is again portrayed as necessary and just; atrocities against Israeli civilians are minimized; and Israel’s counteroffensive is depicted as wanton criminality. To sustain this moral inversion, Hamas relies on falsified casualty figures, selective omissions, and hyperbole. At 42 pages, the new manifesto is more than twice as long as the original. The added length reflects the intervening 23 months of material Hamas now treats as validation: ICC arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by several Western governments eager to isolate Israel; the normalization of the “genocide” libel in international forums; and the ceasefire produced by President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace initiative.
A Revealing Change in Tone
The 2024 version — issued while the Oct. 7 atrocities still dominated headlines — was occasionally defensive, even faintly apologetic. It asked plaintively what the world expected Palestinians to do in response to alleged Zionist crimes and conceded that “maybe some faults happened,” a rare implicit acknowledgment of Hamas’s barbarism. The 2025 version dispenses with such hedging. It is openly triumphalist. Hamas ignores entirely the Trump plan’s central demand: that it disarm and relinquish power. Instead, it insists on a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, unrestricted Palestinian control, and comprehensive reconstruction — presenting these maximalist demands as if they were unconditional provisions of the plan itself.
Hamas’s Demands Stretch Beyond Gaza
The Palestinian Authority, which Trump envisions playing a role in Gaza’s future, is dismissed contemptuously as the “Ramallah Authority.” Hamas simultaneously demands deeper integration into the Palestine Liberation Organization, a thinly veiled challenge to Fatah’s long-standing dominance and a bid to reshape Palestinian politics in its favor. The manifesto also reflects Hamas’s comfort with great power rivalry. China and Russia are praised. Qatar and Egypt are lauded as mediators. Turkey — a NATO member that openly sponsors Hamas and seeks a postwar role in Gaza — is warmly embraced. The message is clear: Hamas sees international patrons and protectors, not isolation. The timing is no accident. The document appeared shortly after Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt used the Doha Forum to accuse Israel alone of ceasefire violations, and days before Trump hosted Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago to review Gaza and broader regional tensions.
Hamas’s Plan to Wait Out the World
As propaganda, Hamas’s own writing is crude and ineffective compared to the sophisticated influence campaigns waged on its behalf by Qatar — and potentially amplified by Chinese and Russian information operations. Its claims of historical, religious, and military righteousness will persuade only those already committed. Many Palestinians, surveying Gaza’s devastation and Israel’s recovery of all but one Oct. 7 hostage, will see through the self-declared “victory.”But Oct. 7 itself demonstrated a dangerous truth: when Hamas believes its own rhetoric, it can achieve catastrophic results. The new manifesto suggests Hamas now believes something else as well — that by clinging to its weapons, projecting confidence, and waiting out international interest, it can eventually force acceptance of its continued rule. If they cannot persuade Trump, Hamas plans to exhaust him into tolerating a Gaza endgame in which the terrorist group remains very much alive.
**Mark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from Mark and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow him on X @mdubowitz. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.

Russia is keeping its helicopters away from Ukraine's naval drones, a special forces commander says. They were becoming 'easy targets.'
Sinéad Baker/Business Insider/December 31/2025
Russia is keeping helicopters away from Ukraine's naval drones, a commander said.
He said they are "easy targets" for missile-armed drones. Ukraine has strengthened its naval drones with weapons like missiles that have hit Russian aircraft. Russian helicopters are now steering clear of Ukraine's naval drones because they are vulnerable to the surface-to-air missiles some carry, a Ukrainian special forces commander said. The commander, call sign Thirteen, leads "Group 13," a special forces unit within Ukraine's defense intelligence agency, the GUR, that uses naval drones. He said that Russian helicopters initially "posed a critical threat and made our work difficult." However, the naval drones evolved to counter the aircraft. Specifically, Ukraine armed them with missiles. "After that, the enemy stopped using helicopters against us altogether, realising they had become easy targets for our missiles," Thirteen said. He spoke earlier this month at a GUR showcase about Ukraine's naval drones, and his comments were reported by Ukrainian outlet Pravda. The commander did not specify when this change occurred, but his update indicates an increasingly successful role for Ukraine's pioneering naval drones. The drones achieved tremendous wins against Russian warships, forcing Russia to relocate its naval vessels and increase combat air patrols. Now, it appears the new missile-armed naval drones are seeing success in driving away the air patrols. Ukraine claimed its first naval drone kill of a Russian helicopter last December, calling it a first worldwide. It said a Magura V5 sea drone destroyed a Russian Mi-8 helicopter with missiles. Ukraine has since claimed more helicopter hits with its naval drones. The usefulness of helicopters has shifted throughout the war. Russia saw its Ka-52 attack helicopters defeat Ukrainian armor but also suffered losses to air defenses, the proliferation of which has made it extremely difficult for either side to take control of the skies. Russian helicopters, much like Ukraine's, have broadly been vulnerable to interceptors and drones, both aerial first-person-view (FPV) drones and now naval drones. They're increasingly employed with caution but still used for troop transport, logistical support, evacuations, armed support, air assault missions, and drone hunts. Ukraine, for instance, has new helicopter units dedicated to shooting down Russian drones. Notably, though, they're engaging Shahed-style long-range one-way attack drones that Russia uses to attack cities, not front-line attack drones.
The naval drones' ability to shoot down helicopters reflects how rapidly the systems have evolved to hit a wider range of targets. Early in the war, the drones were used mainly as explosive-laden attack craft, ramming Russian warships and other vessels.
Along with aerial drones, they helped Ukraine blunt Russia's naval power despite Ukraine lacking a traditional navy, including by forcing much of Russia's Black Sea Fleet to withdraw to ports farther from Ukraine. The fleet used to be based in Sevastopol but is now positioned primarily at Novorossiysk. Over time, Ukraine has expanded the drones' capabilities by adding missile and rocket launchers, guns, and even other drones that can be launched from the vessels. New variants and missions have followed, including drones that have downed Russian fighter jets and others designed specifically to strike Russian assets on rivers.Ukraine makes its own sea drones, including Magura variants and the Sea Baby. Russia has also gotten into the naval drone business, and the West is increasingly paying attention to the impact that the assets can have in war.
Read the original article on Business Insider
https://ca.yahoo.com/news/russia-keeping-helicopters-away-ukraines-153308794.html

The many shades of Islam ...Not all interpretations justify and drive terrorism – but some do
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/December 31, 2025 |
Following the massacre on Bondi Beach earlier this month, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters that the murderers were adherents of a “radical perversion of Islam.” Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett added that the men who gunned down 15 Jews, including a 10-year-old girl and an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, were aligned with the Islamic State, which she claimed is a terrorist organization – “not a religion.”
Really, mates?
It’s been a generation since Al Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Back then, most people had no idea who Osama bin Laden was, much less what he believed. No one wanted to tar all Muslims with the terrorist brush. That was admirable. Just days after 9/11/01, President George W. Bush proclaimed that “Islam is peace.” That was morally generous but analytically incorrect. These many years later, it’s no longer excusable for powerful and influential people like Mr. Albanese and Ms. Barrett to not know much about history and even less about theology. Cutting to the chase: members of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, the regime that rules Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Boko Haram are all terrorists but we may presume that they also are true believers whose interpretations of the Koran and the Hadiths (collections of the sayings of the prophet Muhammad) are not insupportable. Many members of these bellicose groups self-identify as “Salafi-Jihadis,” meaning they see their version of Islam as akin to that of the Prophet Muhammad’s 7th century companions and followers whose armies marched out of Arabia, swords raised, conquering foreign peoples and settling in foreign lands.
Vast Islamic empires and caliphates soon dominated much of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as significant swaths of Europe and Asia. It was not until the 1920s, in the aftermath of World War I, that the Ottoman Empire collapsed and the last Ottoman caliph, Abdülmecid II, boarded the Orient Express at a station near Istanbul, heading for exile among the unbelievers of Europe. Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian school teacher, saw this as a historic tragedy. In 1928, he founded the Muslim Brotherhood. Its mission was – and still is – to reestablish Islamic supremacy and domination everywhere and anywhere.
Since then, Brotherhood theologians have provided inspiration to pretty much every group committed to waging jihad against Jews, Christians, Hindus, and others. Those “others” include Muslims who decline to embrace the jihadis’ reading of Islam and the obligations the jihadis insist are incumbent upon Muslims.
Under a doctrine known as takfir, these jihadis excommunicate and, on many occasions, kill Muslims who decline to toe their theological line. This has been happening in Nigeria where Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Fulani militias slaughter Muslims who prefer to peacefully coexist with their Christian neighbors. Similarly, Gazans uninterested in fighting an endless war against Israelis are denounced as “collaborators,” a crime for which Hamas has summarily executed dozens over recent months. Takfiris insist it’s their way or the highway because Islam is not open to interpretation, unlike Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. But we know that claim is false because Shia Islam diverged from Sunni Islam nearly 1,400 years ago. And, over the centuries since, many other Islamic denominations have evolved. To name just a few: Sufis, Alevis, Ibadis, and Ahmadiyya. And within modern Shiism, there are three distinct traditions. You’ll also recall that the Islamic State split from Al Qaeda. Among their theological differences: Al Qaeda opposed the premature declaration of a caliphate.
Al Qaeda reasoned that if a caliphate was declared and then crushed, with the caliph killed by infidels, millions of Muslims would conclude that the jihad lacked divine endorsement. As it turned out, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS founder and its first self-proclaimed caliph, was killed during a U.S. raid in Syria in 2019. The three caliphs who succeeded him also came to untimely ends. But there’s now a fourth caliph, and the Islamic State carries on, not least in Syria and Nigeria – two locations where its forces have recently been bombed on President Trump’s orders. Meanwhile, over recent years Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been reforming “Wahhabism,” the state theology of Saudi Arabia based on the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, an 18th-century scholar whose goal was to establish a singular, rigorous, and pristine school of Islamic law. The Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed in Saudi Arabia, as it is in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE even has a Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence. In 2023, he opened an Abrahamic Family House – a complex containing a mosque, church, and synagogue intended to convey “interfaith unity, tolerance, moderation, and peaceful coexistence.”
Who has the authority to tell the Saudis and the Emiratis they’re not good Muslims? By the same token, who has the authority to tell Jew-hating Muslim gunmen in Australia that they’re “perverting” a peaceful religion that doesn’t countenance terrorism? That concludes my sermon for today but, in the few column inches I have left, I want to tell you a story. In 2009, the State Department sent me to Pakistan under a “U.S. Speaker and Specialist program.”One of my meetings was with a group of religious leaders from different Muslim sects. One spoke of “moderate Islam.” Another objected: “There is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam.’” Not one expressed support for Osama bin Laden (who was then secretly living in Pakistan). But neither would any label him an apostate or heretic. This conversation prompted me to start reading and thinking about the subject of today’s column. It’s high time Mr. Albanese, Ms. Barrett, and many others in government, law enforcement, and academia did the same.
*Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a columnist for the Washington Times, and host of the “Foreign Podicy” podcast.
Read in The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/dec/30/many-shades-islam/

People of Iran keep rising up against tyranny, and we should help them
Behnam Ben Taleblu/New York Post/December 31/2025
Iranians have once again taken to the streets in defiance of their Islamist and authoritarian government. What began as demonstrations triggered by economic grievances — with the rial plummeting to nearly 1.4 million against the dollar on the free market — quickly spiraled into wholesale political protests against the Islamic Republic itself. Anti-regime slogans have echoed through multiple cities, with Iranians bravely risking life and limb to tell the world they refuse to bend to tyranny.This marks the first major multi-day, multi-city national uprising since the 12-Day War in June against Israel and the US that devastated the regime’s military capabilities and regional proxy network. While that conflict left Tehran weaker than ever against armed adversaries abroad, at home the regime has relied on a calculated cocktail, permitting limited social openings like public concerts and selective hijab enforcement, coupled with brutal repression of political dissent. Yet here’s what policymakers in Washington need to understand: The question isn’t whether these protests are “different this time.”
It’s the remarkable consistency that should be setting off alarm bells.
Since December 2017, Iran has witnessed a sustained pattern of nationwide uprisings signaling a fundamental shift away from gradual reform toward demands for the Islamic Republic’s complete dismantlement. This escalated in November 2019 when the regime massacred more than 1,500 Iranians after protesters were triggered by a fuel price hike. These nationwide uprisings reached a historic high in 2022 and 2023 during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, sparked by the murder of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian-Kurdish woman, over her alleged mandatory hijab violations.
Between these major eruptions, labor protests, strikes and acts of civil disobedience have kept the momentum alive. The current protests fit this pattern perfectly. They are triggered by non-political issues, but sustained by profound anti-regime political grievances. You see it in the chants, the geography, and the demography: An increasingly diverse cross-section of Iranian society spanning different regions, age groups, and backgrounds is willing to touch the third rail of directly challenging the regime’s legitimacy. They’re not settling for half measures or cosmetic reforms. They want fundamental change. This consistency, fortitude and boldness of the resistance should wake Washington from its policy slumber. As protesters grow in numbers and courage, the regime responds with extreme violence, deploying security forces to crush dissent. This very concern emanating from Tehran signals that these protests matter and are rattling the oppressive government to its core. Consider the brazen contradiction: Iran is rebuilding its ballistic missile arsenal and flirting with renewed nuclear development after losing a war and after having long lost the confidence of its people. A regime this weakened, this delegitimized at home, should not have the breathing room to threaten regional stability or American interests abroad including threats against US officials and President. Yet Washington continues to admire the problem from afar rather than seizing the opening. The Trump administration needs a coherent game plan that recognizes this moment for what it is: a population in open revolt against a vulnerable regime. Every anti-regime protest demonstrates that Iranians are willing to risk everything for freedom. The question is whether their courage will be met with tangible American support, or merely sympathetic statements. The regime’s weakness at home should translate into aggressive US policy abroad — maximum pressure to squash Tehran’s malign activities while providing maximum support to the Iranian people’s aspirations. Such support does not mean US boots on the ground. It can be as simple as communications support like VPNs and Starlink internet access when the regime disconnects its citizens, or cyberattacks against the repression apparatus.  It could mean stronger terrorism sanctions against the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence, supporting strikers and protesters with seized regime assets, and sanctions on human rights abusers, including those involved in violent crackdowns on protests and executions. It’s too soon to know if this uprising will become the spark that ignites lasting change, or another ember keeping the torch of resistance alive.
But the next major round of protests was always a matter of when, not if. Each wave builds on the last, with demonstrators growing bolder and their demands more uncompromising. The Islamic Republic is hemorrhaging legitimacy while desperately trying to project strength through ballistic missiles and nuclear brinkmanship. Washington must stop treating Iranian protests as isolated incidents and recognize them as a sustained revolutionary movement that deserves strategic American backing.
**Behnam Ben Taleblu is senior director of the Iran Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Read in New York Post
https://nypost.com/2025/12/30/opinion/people-of-iran-keep-rising-up-against-tyranny-and-we-should-help-them/

Watching the world as 2026 begins: Peace in a world still shaped by conflict
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya English'/December 31/2025
As we enter the new year, there is a shared global hope that 2026 will be a year of peace, stability, and healing after years marked by war, displacement, and uncertainty. Across continents, many people welcome the new year with the wish that violence will give way to diplomacy and that exhausted societies will finally have space to rebuild. Yet realism requires acknowledging that the international system remains fragile. Several major conflicts remain unresolved, while others carry the potential to reignite or transform in unpredictable ways. These crises will demand sustained attention from global and international decision-making bodies, regional powers, and diplomatic institutions. The turn of the calendar does not erase geopolitical realities. Long-standing rivalries, unresolved wars, and fragile post-conflict transitions will likely continue to shape global affairs in 2026. Five major issues stand out as especially critical: the war in Ukraine, the risk of renewed confrontation between Iran and Israel, the uncertain future of the Gaza–Israel ceasefire, the ongoing catastrophe in Sudan, and the evolving situation in Syria, where the success or failure of the new government will have consequences far beyond its borders.
Russia and Ukraine: Between negotiation fatigue and strategic deadlock
The war in Ukraine is likely to remain one of the most consequential conflicts in 2026. Years of fighting have produced enormous human suffering, economic strain, and geopolitical polarization, yet no decisive military outcome has emerged. Instead, the conflict appears trapped between growing talk of diplomacy and a persistent strategic deadlock that prevents meaningful progress. The core obstacle remains unchanged: territory, sovereignty, and security guarantees. Ukraine continues to insist on the restoration of its territorial integrity and long-term protection against future aggression. Russia, meanwhile, remains unwilling to withdraw from occupied areas or accept an outcome it views as a loss of strategic influence. These opposing positions leave little room for compromise, even as both societies feel the cumulative cost of war. In 2026, the conflict may increasingly be defined by parallel tracks of negotiation and confrontation. Diplomatic initiatives may multiply, but without genuine concessions, they risk producing stalemate rather than resolution. Any durable settlement would require painful compromises, credible international guarantees, and a broader rethinking of European security. Whether political leaders are prepared to take such steps will determine whether Ukraine moves toward peace or remains locked in prolonged conflict.
Iran and Israel: A volatile rivalry with regional consequences
The possibility of renewed confrontation between Iran and Israel will remain one of the most dangerous variables in the global security environment in 2026. Even during periods of relative calm, the relationship between the two states is defined by deep mistrust, strategic rivalry, and competing visions for the Middle East.Israel continues to view Iran’s military capabilities and regional influence as existential threats, while Iran perceives Israeli actions as part of a sustained effort to contain and weaken it. This rivalry is not confined to direct interaction; it extends through regional networks, proxy forces, and strategic signaling, making miscalculation a constant risk.As 2026 unfolds, political timing and international alignment – particularly relations with the United States – will play a critical role. Reports suggesting that Israel may revisit military options against Iran during key diplomatic or political windows underscore how fragile the current balance remains. Any escalation could rapidly expand beyond bilateral confrontation. This makes the Iran-Israel dynamic a central issue to watch closely throughout the year.
Gaza and Israel: The fragility of ceasefire and the weight of human suffering
Whether the Gaza–Israel ceasefire can endure will be one of the most pressing humanitarian and political questions of 2026. After repeated cycles of conflict and violence, devastation has increased. Ceasefires in this context have historically been temporary and fragile, shaped more by immediate pressure than by long-term political solutions. Without addressing the deeper causes of conflict each truce risks collapsing under the weight of unresolved grievances. In 2026, a sustained ceasefire could provide a rare opportunity for humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and the reduction of civilian casualties. Failure, however, would mean renewed tragedy and further destabilization of the region. The ability of regional actors and international mediators to maintain calm and move beyond crisis management will be a defining test of global responsibility.
Sudan: A deepening civil war and a neglected humanitarian disaster
Sudan’s civil war remains one of the most devastating yet least resolved conflicts entering 2026. Years of fighting between rival armed forces have torn the country apart, displacing millions and pushing large portions of the population toward famine and extreme deprivation. Institutions have collapsed, and civilians have been left exposed to violence, hunger, and disease. Despite repeated attempts at mediation, ceasefires have failed to hold. Both sides continue to believe that military advantage remains possible, prolonging a conflict that offers no real winners. Meanwhile, the humanitarian cost grows, even as international attention fluctuates. In 2026, Sudan will test the willingness of the international community to address crises that lack immediate geopolitical payoff but involve immense human suffering. Without sustained diplomatic pressure and coordinated humanitarian engagement, the country risks sinking further into prolonged instability with consequences that extend across the region.
Syria: Watching a fragile transition and the search for stability
Another critical issue to watch closely in 2026 is Syria, where attention will focus on whether the new government can continue what many hope will be a gradual process of stabilization after years of devastating war. The stakes are high, not only for Syrians themselves but for the broader Middle East.
Key questions will center on governance, security, and reconstruction. Observers will closely monitor whether the new authorities can maintain internal stability, continue efforts to combat ISIS and other extremist remnants, and prevent the country from sliding back into fragmentation or renewed conflict. The ability to establish security and rebuild trust among communities will be essential for any lasting progress. Equally important will be Syria’s regional relationships. Support from regional partners – particularly Saudi Arabia and other Arab states – will continue to play a significant role in encouraging economic recovery, reintegration into regional diplomacy, and gradual normalization. If managed carefully, 2026 could mark a slow but meaningful step toward a more stable and functional Syrian state. If mismanaged, however, the country risks remaining stuck in a fragile and volatile limbo.
An uncertain world and a shared hope for 2026
These five issues will likely shape much of the global agenda in 2026, but the world remains unpredictable. New crises may emerge, existing conflicts may shift unexpectedly, and unforeseen events could redefine priorities overnight. What remains constant is the need for vigilance, diplomacy, and a renewed commitment to peace. As the world steps into 2026, there are no guarantees – only opportunities. The hope is that this new year will bring more dialogue than destruction, more compromise than confrontation, and more peace than conflict.

Selected Face Book & X tweets for /December 31/2025
Thankful for what I experienced this year!
Rana Kardouh/Face Book/December 31/2025 This year I was respected Welcomed. Understood. Stared with warmth. Am blessed with smiles , Warmed by the hugs , sustained by prayers, You came on through for me And I am LOVED! my deep thanks to everyone and all circumstances who have offered me these generous moments of love. But there were also some injuries, silences that hurt, absent stares. Times where I was not heard, nor recognized, where patience was lacking and the respect was fading, like i don't exist . Like im not loved. And yet...it is through these trials which I have learned the most. This is where I grew up. Today I choose forgiveness: for the people, due to the circumstances, for the wounds. I also recognize my own shadows.The times I hurt, not help judged, shouted, ignored, not listened... lack of love.I ask forgiveness for all of this. Thanks to those who have been the mirror of my faults, that's how I can still grow. There were also so many gestures of love offered, So much kindness being shared. And of that, I am proud. Because love given feeds the soul and sparks joy. Thank you, 2025, for both your bright and dark moments! Let 2026 be a year full of love,of healing, and experiences that make us grow, together

Einav Halabi عناب حلبي
Walid Jumblatt does NOT represent the Druze.After the massacres in Suwayda, his silence and his handshake with Abu Mohammad al-Jolani are nothing but betrayal.
He is a feudal warlord serving his own house, not his people. The Druze reject him. The world must stop calling him our leader.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
On the last day of the year, a 14.25-mile run (23 km) on Dubai's Water Canal and Kite Beach, bringing my 2025 total to 1219 miles (1962 km). Dubai is home away from home. Its beach was jammed with people from all corners of earth, speaking all languages, running, biking, walking, water gliding, sun bathing, etc. This is the place where people bring their merit and ambition and come to fulfill their dreams and raise their families, while living at peace with each other and with other nations across the region and the world. In my final goodbye, allow me to count my blessings: Everyone I love is in good physical and mental health, I can still run endless mileage in my 50s, and I'm lucky to call America home.

Shadi khalloul שאדי ח'לול
As a Christian Aramaic Maronite Israeli citizen, researching Christian persecution in the Middle East for years, and advocating for christian rights, I am proud to be part of Israel. Israel was the 1st country to intervene for saving Lebanese Christians from annihilation done by Palestinians and their Islamic Arab jihadi supporters during 1980's.  Israel was the first country to recognize our Aramaic national identity in 2014 as native Christians after 7 years advocating for it.
@netanyahu was the prime minister
@gidonsaar was the interior minister.
Guess who opposed it? Arab Israeli leaders. Why? Because these Arab leaders are racist colonialists. I met them both, and gladly, i succeeded in this mission and more to follow and come.

Guila Fakhoury
Thank you, Riad Tawk and MTV Lebanon, for highlighting this important topic. Thank you Yussuf ElKhoury for speaking the truth about my father Amer Fakhoury who was illegally detained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. It’s time we address the sacrifices of the innocent who protected their land and Lebanon. Everyone affected by Hezbollah’s actions deserves safety and a path back to Lebanon.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/25216535154705823
شكراً رياض طوق و MTV Lebanon على تسليط الضوء على هذا الموضوع المهم. شكراً يوسف الخوري على قول الحقيقة عن والدي عامر فاخوري. لقد حان الوقت لنتحدث عن تضحيات الأبرياء الذين دافعوا عن أرضهم وعن لبنان. كل من تضرر من أفعال حزب الله يستحق الأمان والعودة إلى لبنان.
I recommend everyone to watch the full episode of بإسم الشعب on MTV.