Israeli air and drone strikes have killed seven Hezbollah fighters, including a field commander, in less than 24 hours.
Three of the fighters died when their car was targeted by an Israeli drone early on Saturday on the coastal road from Al-Naqoura toward the city of Tyre.
Bashar al-Assad issued an administrative order to retire about 7,000 volunteers, according to Shaam Network.
The Ministry of Defense in the Assad regime’s government announced on Tuesday, January 2nd, the retirement of approximately seven thousand volunteers from Assad’s militias. Additionally, the Ministries of Defense and Interior unveiled the 2024 promotion schedule, encompassing the elevation of numerous officers.
Turkey bears responsibility for possible war crimes in Syria, Human Rights Watch says
Human Rights Watch says Turkey bears responsibility for some of the abuses and possible war crimes committed in Syria, mostly against Kurdish residents in northern Syria
In swathes of northern Syria, Türkiye is an occupying power.
Latest Developments
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed on February 26 that Iran violated a mandatory obligation to inform the agency of plans to construct a new nuclear facility. In a quarterly report viewed by FDD, the IAEA said Tehran’s recent groundbreaking on a new nuclear power reactor near Darkovin, known as the IR-360, ran afoul of an IAEA rule known as Modified Code 3.1. The code requires Iran to report to the agency when the regime decides to build a new nuclear-material production facility and provide initial design information. Iran’s violation of the code intensifies concern that Tehran will fail to inform the IAEA if it constructs a secret uranium enrichment plant to rapidly make fuel for atomic weapons.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza will be remembered as the moral collapse of the West.
As soon as the Israeli war began, following the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7, every moral or legal frame of reference that Washington and its western allies supposedly held dear was suddenly dropped. Western leaders rushed to Israel, one after the other, offering military, political and intelligence support – along with a blank check to rightwing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his generals to torment the Palestinians.
Border tensions between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon, have been rising over the past two months. Following Israel’s counteroffensive on Hamas in Gaza, after the latter’s actions on the 7th of October, Hezbollah has vowed to support Hamas in their war against Israel.
“We will destroy everything not Jewish.”
—–Theodore Herzl[i]
“We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads . . . . You Palestinians, as a nation, don’t want us today, but we’ll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you.”
ADL chief decries ‘shocking’ results of survey, which shows younger respondents most likely to agree with anti-Jewish tropes, have little problem with backing for Hamas
Nearly a quarter of Americans hold antisemitic beliefs, with a disturbing reversal in trends showing that younger generations are more likely to believe in antisemitic tropes than previous generations, the Anti-Defamation League found in a survey released Thursday.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks still overshadows Middle East politics, with the spectre of wider war or other regional instability ever present even as ceasefire talks appear to be making progress. Crisis Group experts offer a 360-degree view.
Israel and Hezbollah have continued to escalate their cross-border attacks that began after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, although the two sides remain short of full-scale warfare.
U.S. and French diplomats are seeking to develop a formula to de-escalate the skirmishing, modeled on some of the past agreements that ended Israel-Hezbollah hostilities.