Orientul Mijlociu

In 2nd speech this week, Hezbollah chief vows response is coming on the killing of Hamas terror orchestrator Arouri, says Lebanon would be exposed if assassination went unanswered

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah threatened that Israel’s northern residents would be “the first to pay the price if a full-scale war were to erupt” along the front, and boasted of the terror group’s achievements in recent daily skirmishes, in a nationally televised speech Friday.

Salvo of more than 40 projectiles sets off alarms in 90 Israeli communities; no injuries in strikes that targeted Mount Meron area; IDF hits terror infrastructure in response

The Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon fired a barrage of dozens of rockets into Israel on Saturday in a move it called “an initial response” to the alleged Israeli killing of Hamas terror chief Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon last week. There were no reports of injuries.

Since Hezbollah’s guns began their unprovoked fire against Israel on October 8, 2023, Lebanon has found itself an unwitting battlefield in the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Palestinian terrorist factions. Lebanon, whose territory is both the headquarters of Hezbollah—Iran’s most powerful extension and vanguard of its regional expansionism—and hub of coordination and planning for the Resistance Axis’ anti-Israel operations, couldn’t have expected total immunity. On January 2, Israel eliminated senior Hamas official Saleh Al-Arouri—one of the lynchpins of this coordination effort—in a precision strike in the heart of Hezbollah-controlled south Beirut. The strike also killed two other commanders in Hamas’ Izzeldine Al-Qassam Brigades, Azzam Al-Aqra and Samir Fundi, and four other Hamas fighters. This attack will pin Hezbollah between its obligations to the Resistance Axis and its need to navigate Lebanese political and social dynamics; the latter of which it is also a full participant in.

UNRWA has encouraged generations of Palestinians to wallow in the hell of refugees, stuck with the “right of return” promised to them by radical factions committed to eternal war with Israel.

Many words are being written these days about the “day after” in Gaza, but most of the writers ignore one organization, which bears considerable responsibility for the impossible situation the Gazans have reached. UNRWA: “The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East” is an organization sponsored by the UN and funded mostly by Western countries, led by the United States and Germany, but it does not carry out its require mission as a refugee aid agency.

If the US fails to remove Iran’s nuclear capability — and not just (literally) buy time to enable it — the catastrophes that follow will surely go down as US President Joe Biden’s legacy, as well as the legacy of those around him.

Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for the latest attack Wednesday on a merchant ship in the Red Sea, as the vessel’s operator sharply raised prices between Asia and Europe.

The Iran-backed militia, who has launched more than 20 attacks on merchant ships in recent weeks, said it attacked the Malta-flagged freighter believing it was headed for occupied Palestinian territory. The ship was not hit.

On December 4, 2023, the Hamas movement announced the establishment of a new youth movement in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon called the Al-Aqsa Flood Pioneers, which will constitute, according to Hamas, a “vanguard resistance force which will take part in the liberation of Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque.” In practice, the movement will serve as an organizational framework for ideological recruitment, and will train young Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon preparing them to be Hamas terrorist operatives who will attack Israel from the Lebanese border, following the model of youth movements of other terrorist organizations.