Orientul Mijlociu

Israeli army officers believe that they can’t defeat Hamas and Israel’s war on HAMAS will have to last till 2026 and possibly 2027.

Ismail Haniyeh, senior Hamas leader and former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (2006–07) and of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip (2007–14). Screen shot is from Al Jazeera broadcast of his statement on Dec 13, 2023

Despite the massive destruction of Gaza by the Israeli army and the terrible killings of civilians, the Palestinian resistance movement led by Hamas’ Izz Al Din Al Qassam Brigades and Saraya Al Quds of Islamic Jihad still remain a formidable force in the Gaza Strip.

There is no need, therefore, to abandon the terms jihadism and jihadist out of political correctness or fear of offending Muslims. When appropriately defined, those terms are helpful in grasping the terrorist and insurgent threats and challenges posed by al-Qa’ida, the Islamic State and similar groups — far more so than khawarij, a term that does not have immediately clear meaning for wider audiences, is historically inaccurate, and sounds like a sneaky effort to cloud a very real threat.

Military experience gained from fighting in Syria’s civil war and decades of clashes with Israel has strengthened the Iran-backed group, but politically, its clout among Lebanon’s populace may be waning.

Summary

• Hezbollah wields significant power in Lebanon, where it operates as both a Shiite Muslim political party and militant group.
• It opposes Israel and Western powers operating in the Middle East, and it functions as a proxy of Iran, its largest benefactor.
• The group has faced unprecedented scrutiny from the Lebanese public amid the country’s political and economic crisis.

Since the Islamic State fell, tens of thousands of people—many of them children—have been herded into Al-Hol, a giant fenced-in camp in Syria, and effectively given life sentences.

The dead turned up everywhere. Two decapitated corpses in a cesspit. The remains of a woman with a pierced skull. A child with a bullet hole in his temple. Men clustering around a ditch suggested the worst, as did women running at full speed through the dirt. With each grim discovery, Jihan Omar renewed a promise to herself: she had to find a way out.

Abu Maria Al-Qahtani was the founder of Al-Nusra Front, one of the key groups in Syria’s war, and was killed in bombing on Thursday.

As a leading military commander in the revolt against the Syrian regime and Islamic State group, Abu Maria Al-Qahtani, who was killed on Thursday, was a divisive figure within the Islamist wing of the insurgency.

Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 terror attack, and against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, which has been ongoing for six months, Jordan has seen a surge in popular support for Hamas and hostility towards Israel, which are expressed in many anti-Israel demonstrations and in explicit calls to confront it and wage jihad against it.[1]

Introduction

In recent days, the grand Iranian plan is emerging – the plan with which the Islamic revolutionary regime is continuing despite the killing, in Israeli air strikes, the senior command of its IRGC Qods Force in Syria and Lebanon. The upcoming stage of this plan involves bringing down the regime in Jordan, attacking Israel from the east while Israel is kept busy by Iran-backed resistance forces in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. The political aim of this plan is to thwart the Saudi-American project of normalization with Israel.